Skype traffic way, way down
"Where have all the minutes gone?", asks James Enck, who reveals some rough stats on Skype voice traffic based on what they publish on their website.
Not only is the traffic down significantly over the past few months, this has happened even as the user base has continued to grow. So the average minutes of use per day per user must really be looking grim compared to six months ago.
Could it be seasonal effects? Summer’s here, students are on holiday, etc…. but is so much of the Skype traffic really just students chatting with each other? Shouldn’t southern hemisphere traffic be at least dampening this effect?
Could it be that voice really does take a back seat to IM text? This has actually been the case for me, where I find myself almost only text chatting to friends/colleagues/family, and escalating to voice only where a lot of content needs to be exchanged.
One way forward for Skype would be to really open up and show the world what it’s users are doing– what are the SkypeIn/Out sub/traffic numbers? What are the chat session numbers?