The Power of WE: Observations on the Worldwide Skype Outage

I'm sure most of you are familiar with the internet phone app Skype. Earlier this week the service went down worldwide, and the estimated +200 million users world wide were left Skype-less, myself included.


While I was initially incredibly irritated (still am actually, as I still cannot connect), what I thought was interesting was watching how the blogosphere reacted as the company responded to the problem- which apparently, for many, was just not fast or efficiently enough, which pushed some to start an online petition protesting what they feel is just the latest in poor service (see: users unleashing some fury on a previous incident).

Yet another reminder of how powerful blogs and web 2.0 technology at our fingertips truly is. The level of transparency and accountability we can demand from the companies we choose to do biz with- and how instantaneously they allow us to act- is truly incredible. It took minutes, not hours, after the service went down before the blogs were on fire, lambasting Skype service and pointing out that this was no isolated incident.

It wasn't too long ago that companies got away with telling us what they wanted us to know, when they wanted us to know it. Now they themselves feel the heat of us watching the watchers so much that they keep us updated almost hourly with what they are doing to address the situation. Though I'd say that it's still lacking, as there have been few details released, nor a clear time line as to when all systems will be a go.

But at this point, "updates" are becoming "irritation" as I am still Skype-less...