Skype tops 500 million downloads

Skype today announced that its software has been downloaded more than 500 million times by users around the world, "extending its mark as one of the most popular free downloads of all time." Yes, well, McDonalds has served more hamburgers than Skype has been downloaded, so nah! You gotta love these download benchmarks that are almost meaningless since they don't tell you the actual number of users. Nevertheless, congrats to Skype for reaching 500 million downloads. What does that equate to for the eBay buyout of \$4000 million (4 billion)? That's about \$4000 million/500 million downloads = \$8/download eBay paid to Skype.
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\nThis milestone was reached in slightly over 42 months time, counting from when Skype was first introduced in beta at the end of August 2003.
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\n"The entire Skype team owes its success to the global community of registered users we have today who tell their loved ones how much they enjoy using Skype. We’re absolutely delighted that so many people are embracing Skype and speaking to friends or family all over the world for free or very little cost." said Skype CEO and co-founder Niklas Zennström.
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\nSkype Facts:
\n- Six people download Skype every second
\n- Skype to Skype minutes in Q4 2006 alone totaled 7.6 billion minutes
\n- In September 2005, Skype had 54 million registered users and today it has over 171 million registered users worldwide