Skype is big — today it said its software has been downloaded by 100 million users, and 2.7 million people are online as I type this —- and it’s widely seen as a challenge to the old telephone companies. But could it also topple ICQ and other instant messaging programs? After all, the folk at Skype seem to spend as much time adding features to the text chat part of the software as they do adding features to the VoIP bit.
No real way of telling, I guess, except this graph offers an interesting peek: Using Alexa’s Traffic History Graph service to show how traffic to ICQ.com and Skype.com compare over the past year:
Clearly Skype has made big strides and continues to narrow the gap. This despite the fact that ICQ’s website is not just a download site but a community portal.
Using Intelliseek’s BlogPulse tool — measuring references in blogs to the terms ‘ICQ’ and ‘Skype’ reveal a somewhat similar pattern over the six months:
