Yes, they inform the “number of users”! But they are cheating! And I really can prove they are cheating ;-)

In the past Niklas Zennström, CEO of Skype, and other members of Skype Staff have mentioned several times the number of users. Several Bloggers or visitors of the Skype Forum were wondering what was behind the definition of “Users”. Did they mean active users, including occasional users? Or registered user names? Or something else? I have never seen an answer.

But Skype provided now an official answer! Indeed, they made the same number available through their RSS feeds! I found this:

This screenshot from the RSS feed into my Excel sheet clearly tells us that the number of “users” is in fact the number of registered Skype names.

And this is quite different, because some Skype names are not used at all for any of the following reasons (non exclusive list):

• lost passwords, and therefore inaccessible username
• tests, and abandoned use of the name
• spare usernames, registered for future use (I have several!)
• the owner of the username died (yes, this also happens!  )
• the person switched to another VoIP tool
• the person registered a temporary name for a temporary past situation.

So the title “100 million users” should be changed to “100 million registered usernames.”

Quite a difference ... and the discussion can go on: HOW MANY REAL REGULAR USERS DOES SKYPE HAVE NOW?