Skype has reached critical mass

Looking at my Skype client running today, I see there are nearly 9 million people logged on as I write this. Some would say that's enough to show Skype has reached critical mass. But for me the real sign that Skype will soon take over the world is this. My mum uses Skype. I don't mean it's installed on her computer and she ignores it. No, she actually called me up on it the other day. And today she started an instant messaging session with me. So congratulations to Skype for writing a piece of software that is simple enough for a pensioner with techno-fear to use. And congratulations on your impending world domination. 

Skype rocks

OK, so I'm about 12 months late but I've only just got round to using Skype on a regular basis and it's great. Most importantly it just works. I've had long conversations with people in the US and Australia and it drops out very rarely. Compared to my experiences with Yahoo Messenger (where conversations tended to consist of 'what was that?', 'you still there?', 'I'll call you again, see if it's any better', 'can you type out whatever you're trying to say', 'I give up, I'll call you on the landline') this is very pleasing. Any negatives? Sending files can sometimes be very slow (but this is still better than MSN which sometimes just refuses to accept files) and I can't seem to find a way to search through past chats. And it's written in Delphi, so perhaps there is life in the old dog yet.