February 20th, 2008
Of Skype, wooly mammoths and Big Macs
Last week, Skype announced they attained the 100 billion minute level in terms of free Skype-to-Skype voice and video calls since Skype 
launched in 2003.
As a representative of Skype just pointed out to me, frequently cited research that estimates the number of humans who have ever lived as 100 billion, that 100 billion level equates to one minute of free talk for every man, woman and child that has ever walked the Earth!
Playing with these numbers even more, my source points out to me that:
Skype has only been in business for about 4.5 years (approximately 2,365,200 minutes). Yet people have used Skype to talk for more than 69,444,444 days (more than 190,258 years). Go back 150,000 years, if a woolly mammoth and a sabre-toothed tiger had started talking for free on Skype, they would still be chatting away today… and with more than 40,258 years to go!
OK, whatever.
Segueing from wooly mammoths to more contemporary meat sources:
It took McDonald’s nearly 39 years to serve 100 billion hamburgers (from 1955 to 1994). And it’s taken Skype just over four years to hit the 100 billion free minutes mark, which is pretty amazing!
For even more perspective on this milestone, check out the Skype Blog at
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
