The Skype renaissance in review

For this week's round up, I thought we'd look at Skype. In some ways, a round up is almost unnecessary since there has been so much Skype related news we could have just filled a newsletter with the stuff. We will spare you all of that.

It seems like only yesterday that Skype's founders and eBay were going toe-to-toe with lawsuits trying to cramp each other's style. After all the messy business was settled and new owners including some of Skype's original founders took over, Skype has been experiencing a sort of renaissance. Skype has been popping up a lot lately as it makes good on its promise to be a ubiquitous VoIP service. It said VoIP must go mobile and it has been plugging away on that front. It said it would be on your television and now even that has come to pass.

But as Skype gets bigger and more prevalent in the consumer space, it is interesting to see how it plans to further monetize its service. As noted this week, the iPhone 3G Skype App is actually just a free trial that by the end of the year will begin charging Skype-to-Skype callers for calls made over 3G. According to an article in the L.A. Times, it was at one point Skype's stance to never charge for their Skype-to-Skype calls, but it seems that as more users begin to value its service the company believes they might be willing to pay for it.

See all the most recent news from Skype in our news roundup here...