Some Skype news comes our way via Digital Times… Skype for Windows is now ad supported. Yikes!
Ugly ads such as the one in the above image will soon be appearing for users in the US, Germany, and the UK and will feature adverts from the likes of Visa, Universal Pictures, and Groupon. The report from Digital Times doesn’t mention anything about the Mac version of Skype becoming ad support, but it’s probably on the agenda.
Of Skype’s 145 million monthly users, only approximately 8.8 are paying users. In 2010 the VoIP company generated sales of approximately $860 million with a net loss of $7 million. It’s not clear from the Digital Times post whether or not the ads will also be displayed to paying customers but we can only presume that they won’t.
Skype claims that the ads “won’t interrupt your Skype experience. You won’t suddenly see annoying pop-up ads or flashy banner ads in middle of conversations.”
I wonder how long before we will start seeing adverts popping up in the Skype Mac version?
