2008-01-02

Skype Forum = real help

Some weeks ago, Bill Campbell, a Canadian of British Columbia, belonging to the last people who crossed the New Year (they are always late in British Columbia (grin) ) contacted me by chat. He is a Super User on the Skype Forum, and he was concerned about the huge drop in the number of visitors on the forum.

I was surprised, because i didn’t have the same feeling. Therefore i checked the numbers.

Well, he is somehow right …On the graph above you can see that since June 2006, the mean number of new topics posted on the Skype Forum was always above 80 per day. The last month it is however dropping quite steadily. But this could be a seasonal effect. I will follow it up.

However, the number of registered usernames on the forum is also dropping.253 new forum users per day in December 2007, and it has been as high as 389 in January 2007! This is probably also a signal of the slower growth of Skype last year!

Another interesting graph shows the mean number of replies per topic.This varies from 1 to more than 100, but the mean value is 4.5.

The Skype Forum is still the best place to get help if you experience a problem with Skype: most problems reported there get an answer from the many volunteers there, even payment problems! Skype Customer support is deceiving everybody by its very slow answers or … no answer at all!

1 comment:

DL Wyer said...

I have gone back and forth with Skype (lack of) support for nearly a month on this. They say they're getting so many complaints it's taking more than three business days to reply! And no support number?? I signed up on Skype without checking their support system(my mistake), bought subscriptions, received an online number from Skype. The number is a listed phone number of a Verizon telephone customer. If someone tries to call me, they get some guy on a land phone instead. I have received tech emails ranging from, 'we need the date, time (calculated to GMT for them), number dialed from and complete error message'; to 'At this time you cannot use a land based number on Skype'. Ok, I know they're not English speaking and are only reading scripts. But come on. This is pretty simple. I've repeatedly stated the problem, given the number issued in error, and even the date and time I attempted to call the number. Still I get unrelated responses. All I want now is my money back. Yes, they were quick to take my money, but nothing more. Now I have to find out how to file an international law suit (it's the principle of the matter now) and post every blog I can possibly find warning of this incompetence.