Skype Lessons

Last week's downtime of Skype's VOIP service was a great reminder to consumers that we have options that could quickly replace faulty service... and to vendors that consumers can quickly replace faulty service!

Huh?

Simple. When we figured out on Friday that we could not communicate via Skype with our developers in Mexico City, we quickly switched to GoogleTalk (available as a gadget, too) and carried on with business.

Skype alternatives such as Gizmo, GrandCentral, and Jajah all reported a nice uptick in business. According to Alexa, traffic to Gizmo tripled in three days, and GrandCentral hit a four-week high. Jajah reported a 50 percent increase in user registrations following the Skype outage.

We've returned to Skype, though I don't expect all of our customers will be as forgiving if we suffer a similar outage. Gotta stay on our toes!