Skype Journal: Why Skype peaks at 16h Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)
June 1, 2005 10:27 AMBy Jean Mercier, Ghent, Belgium, Monday June 1, 2005
Some weeks ago I searched a way to record the users on-line without staying awake the whole night. Perhaps this is possible with the Skype API and some programming, but I am not a programmer anymore! But I found a trick ... View image
Some time ago I found also interesting data concerning the Skype Users by Country.
Of course Users on-line peak around 17h GMT+1 (means 16h GMT), because according to the Skype statistics more than 42% of the users are Europeans located in the GMT 0, GMT+1 and GMT+2 time zones. At the same moment the USA, Brazil and Canada and some other American countries are starting to work!
There is also a "dip" in the curve between 12h and 14h GMT+1! Could it be because a lot of Europeans are leaving the office to lunch, and log-off their Skype? And could it be that the other "dip" in the curve (around 6 AM) has something to do with the Americans (South and North) going out to lunch? Pure speculation, but if somebody has another explanation, I am willing to discuss it.
My curiosity did not
stop there. I recorded the data for a whole week. Here is the View image">chart:
I cheated for the data between Friday and Saturday, because Bill (not Campbell but Gates) decided to shut down my computer. So i had to complement with data of the following week.
Interesting to see that on Thursday and Friday the Users on-line begin to lower. And of course much more on Saturday and Sunday. This clearly indicates that Skype Users are mostly professional adult users.
And it begins to lower already on Thursday and Friday because some Countries (Muslim and Jewish religion) have their days off on Thursday, and/or Friday and/or Saturday, instead of Saturday and Sunday like in most "Christian" based cultures! But this is my personal guess!
What strengthens my opinion about the European and American lunch-time dip of the first graph, is that they clearly disapear on Saturday and Sunday: people are mostly at home!
Using the data of the above mentioned link about "Users by Country", and just for fun, I distributed the Skype Users in their respective time zones. For some countries I had to make an estimate and distribute them over several time zones (USA and Canada). Next I made an assumption: every Skype User is "working" during a twelve hours period on a computer! I plotted the data on a "24 hours chart" and I became this ...View image
Look at the similarity between this graph and the first graph of this Blog!
The discussion is open ... don't hesitate to post different opinions!
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Comments (2)
I am sure you know this but just in case. There is a feed from Skype which gives Total Skype Downloads, Users Online Now and Total Minutes Served
Might help
Posted by: Richard at June 2, 2005 10:48 AM
Thanks Richard, i did NOT know this! :-)
Posted by: Jean Mercier at June 4, 2005 12:39 AM