Skype is valuable because of word-of-mouth (Score 1)

Of course, the rest of the VoIP industry loves this. If Skype is worth $3 billion, then so is Vonage and maybe Packet8. This purchase will validate the VoIP industry... I don't know about this... Skype is worth a lot because it has a good rep. It gained this rep because the software is free, ad-free and bug-free (well i havn't seen any yet) for Windows Mac and Linux. I use Skype often and so do the 10 odd friends and colleagues on my list, but i've never heard of Vonage or Packet8 and I very much doubt that any other of my Skype-using friends have either. Some of these people wouldn't even know what VoIP is, but they know what "Skype" is.