America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998) • Hacker News Board

Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

#141

Post by acjohnson55 » Sun, Feb 23, 2014, 6:13 AM UTC

PakG1 wrote: post #108

aleem wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WhatsApp is much better than Skype as an acquisition. 1. It's a single-purpose, specialised application which makes it hard to compete against. Once you can't subtract anymore from a software you are left with the essence of it. If you build that rock-solid you can eliminate any competitive threat on the product front. Kind of like unix utilities. 2. On the network front they played smartly by going after your phone…

Fixing SMS is the interesting thing. GroupMe was bought by Skype for many millions, and the key thing about GroupMe was supposedly fixing SMS. But I have no idea what happened to GroupMe after that acquisition. Like many startups, perhaps acquisition was death for them, although it seemed to me that would make little sense for Skype's motivations. I don't think they would have been simply looking for talent the way a…

I still use GroupMe every day to group chat with family and friend groups

Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

#142

Post by shubhamjain » Sun, Feb 23, 2014, 6:46 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #139

shuw wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skype has 663 million "accounts", very few of these were active. According to http://www.statisticbrain.com/skype-statistics/ , only 31 million Skype users are active as of 2012.

The statistics sounds BS (as a lot of them are). FWIW, I don't know anyone (across 5 countries of friends and business partners) who doesn't use Skype.

Skype's use prevails mostly around international calling, video conferencing and professional chats. It isn't really an everyday use thing like WhatsApp which, where dominating, is an entire replacement of SMS. My Skype account gets sparingly used for anything else than talking to a client.

Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

#143

Post by coldtea » Sun, Feb 23, 2014, 11:13 AM UTC

shubhamjain wrote: post #142

coldtea wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The statistics sounds BS (as a lot of them are). FWIW, I don't know anyone (across 5 countries of friends and business partners) who doesn't use Skype.

Skype's use prevails mostly around international calling, video conferencing and professional chats. It isn't really an everyday use thing like WhatsApp which, where dominating, is an entire replacement of SMS. My Skype account gets sparingly used for anything else than talking to a client.

That could make sense, because that's what I've seen it used for: international calling, video conferencing and professional chats.

Still, wouldn't that amount to more than 30M users?

Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

#144

Post by gcb0 » Mon, Feb 24, 2014, 5:15 AM UTC

elektronaut wrote: post #84

gcb0 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when my folks got me a modem, the only thing my father made me understand was the phone bill values... i was 7 or younger. learned all about initialization strings and the minimal about terminal emulation to get to the message and mud games part of some bbs. after that it was downhill.

I developed a serious internet addiction when I was a teenager. My parents were working class and struggling to make ends meet, and I was always dreading the day the phone bill arrived. After a couple of confiscated modems (I had a secret backup box of old 28.8s), I realized I could just trade my web skills for money and pay the bills myself. I guess that's what I've been doing since.

webskills only existed some half decade later or more...

one thing i learned fast was that a 1 line dial in bbs had good attendence, so i started to run mine after some time. was interesting, and damn cheap since nothing beats free

Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

#145

Post by grigory » Wed, Feb 26, 2014, 8:56 AM UTC

Kiro wrote: post #94

grigory wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

316666. Haven't used it in many years. Obtaining that number was fun, as well :)

How did you obtain it?

Hard to remember exact details, but it was a bit "grey hat". Exploits of a foolish youth!