VoIP : The Skype Hype

James Fallows (NYT) describes how Skype lives upto the hype.

At the end of Skype's first year in business, I spoke with its co-founder, Niklas Zennstrom, about his ambitions for the second year. High on his list were partnerships with manufacturers of cell phones and personal digital assistants, to build in compatibility with Skype.

The company will also sustain its push to sign up users. It says it has about 10 million users in 212 countries, with an average of more than 600,000 logged on at any given time.

From the user's point of view, there are also questions about whether this new form of instant access could become as intrusive as e-mail often seems. At the moment, it's hard to resist.