60 hour Skype outage = 7 day subscription extension

I, like Dominic Pannell who commented last night and every other Skype user, received a note from ‘The people at Skype’ last night which read:

You may or may not know but last week Skype wasn’t available for a couple of days. There were a number of reasons for this and I am delighted to say that the problem is now well and truly sorted and everything is back to normal.

Me too. I scrolled down to the bottom of the letter to see who ‘I’ was. Nick Zennstrom, right? No. It’s signed ‘The people at Skype’. (The ones, presumably, who were busy drinking coffee and eating pizza whilst I was waiting for my Skype service to be fixed.

For those of you who tried to use Skype during that time but couldn’t, we’re very sorry. For those of you who didn’t try to use Skype – well thankfully you were not affected but we want to reassure everyone that Skype is now working happily and the problem is fixed.

We know we have many faithful users out there who give us feedback (good and bad) on what we’re doing as a company. The Skype community makes us what we are. Without you, our users, we simply wouldn’t exist. We’ve helped people stay in touch with their friends and family over the past four years without any massive hitch and we want it to stay that way.

When the unexpected happens, it’s important to remember the people who stuck behind us and whose loyalty humbled us. I want to thank everyone for their support, patience and being part of the Skype community. And for those of you who missed out on using Skype last week – I want to especially thank you as well.

No comment, no comment. I’m not going to comment. I’d like it to be a nice day today.

As a goodwill gesture to all you faithful Skype Pro, Skype Unlimited, SkypeIn or Skype Voicemail customers, we’re adding an additional seven days to your current subscription, free of charge. And even if you didn’t miss out on using Skype last week – you can still have a week free on Skype, on the house!

So please enjoy it, call your loved ones, friends, family and colleagues and thanks again.

Talk soon,
The people at Skype

So, if you’re a paying customer, have an extra seven days worth of service. Meh. Ok. I was thinking a month or something like that, but that gesture works for me.

But I don’t really appreciate being lumped in with the great unwashed. Everyone gets seven days. Where’s the love for the folk who’re PAYING?

I’ve had a lot of conversations with people about Skype recently. Their failure really did kick-start a lot of smaller and newer companies in terms of attention and subscriber numbers. More on that soon.