Skype By the Numbers: It's Really Big
We all marvel at Facebook and its number of users, which at last check stood at around 400 million. For context, consider Skype, which at the end of the fourth quarter of 2009 had 560 million registered users, a data point Skype's chief technology strategist …
Context & Ripple Effects
As Facebook gathers developers at its F8 conference on April 21 — where rumors swirl, unconfirmed, about a location launch — GigaOM offers a corrective to the assumption that Facebook is simply the internet's largest platform: Skype counted 560 million registered users at the end of Q4 2009, ahead of Facebook's roughly 400 million, a comparison Skype's chief technology strategist was keen to make. The framing matters because the two companies are valued through different lenses: brands have been rushing onto Facebook with analysis pegging each fan at $3.60 in feed-impression value, while Skype's scale has so far been argued through reach rather than ad economics.
GigaOM had already flagged this tension back in August 2007, when two enterprise deals showed Skype pushing beyond consumer calling into the workplace. Three years on, the registered-user tally is the same argument made bigger: Skype wants to be read as infrastructure-scale, not just a free-calling utility.
First-order effects
- Skype gains a headline stat that punctures the 'Facebook is the biggest platform' narrative just as Facebook courts developers at F8 — the two now compete for the same 'largest network' perception.
Second-order effects
- Advertisers and brands comparing the two will notice the asymmetry: Facebook's 400 million users come with measurable ad value like the $3.60-per-fan estimate, while Skype's larger registered base has no equivalent monetization story attached, pressuring Skype to show what those registrations are worth.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, platform rankings will split between registered accounts and actively monetized engagement — forcing every large network to argue scale in whichever metric favors it, and investors to discount raw registration counts accordingly.
The trend: Communication platforms are increasingly ranked by raw registered-user totals even as their business models diverge between advertising-driven engagement and paid connectivity.