While the users in the world were utilizing the Skype to communicate with peers by voice, video, and instant messaging over the Internet, Microsoft's free Internet telephone service on June 13 started displaying callers on-screen ads.
For those who do not know, Skype is a proprietary voice-over-Internet Protocol service and software application originally created by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis in 2003, and now is owned by Microsoft since 2011.
According to the recent development, Skype users -- who do not have Skype Credit or subscriptions will now see advertisements in their call windows, referred to as "Conversation Ads," when they are making one-on-one audio calls using Skype for Windows.
"We're excited to introduce Conversation Ads as an opportunity for marketers to reach our hundreds of millions of connected users," Sandhya Venkatachalam said in a post at the official Skype blog.
"While on a 1:1 audio call, users will see content that could spark additional topics of conversation that are relevant to Skype users and highlight unique and local brand experiences."
The silent conversation ads are available to marketers whereever Skype is available and will be shown during free Skype-to-Skype calls on computers powered by Microsoft's Windows software, according to Venkatachalam.
Microsoft's Skype Internet telephone service hopes to quadruple the number of users to get to one billion, division president Tony Bates said two weeks ago at a prestigious All Things Digital conference in California.
Bates, who heads the unit said growth will come from mobile users and from partnerships like the one Skype has with Facebook.
He cited Facebook as a key to growth for Skype and also added that Skype can use the reach of Microsoft, the world's biggest software firm, to expand its presence, but without limiting itself to the Windows platform.
Skype users can make low-cost or free phone calls over the Internet using their computers or smartphones. Skype bypasses the standard telephone network by channeling voice and video calls over the Web.
As per Wikipedia data analysis, in January 2011, after the release of video calling on the Skype client for iPhone, Skype reached a record 27 million simultaneous online users.This record was broken with 29 million simultaneous online users on 21 February 2011, and again on 28 March 2011 with 30 million online users. According to a recent report by NYT, Skype now has nearly 250 million users, a 26 percent jump over the past seven months.
