I had a very important decision to make: what phone number do we print on our business cards?

Seems like a simple question, but for a company that exists as a network, scattered across 5 countries on 3 continents, the answer is anything but. Luckily, technology has offered a few solutions to our need for a telephone number, but our want to keep on the move.

1. Google Voice - free number that forwards only to any other U.S. number
2. Vonage - paid service with U.S. number, but you have to lug around a modem
3. Skype - you can buy a phone number and forward anywhere, but you pay for the call.

In the end, I chose Skype. So we got a number (718.303.2262, if you want to say hi) and it forwards to one of us—anywhere in the world we might be. It ain’t perfect, by any means, mainly because of bugs in their system, but we’re still in business.

The interesting part was how I thought about the choice: consciously, I said to myself that I’m investing in a company—with my use. I knew that Skype was just OK at the time, but had faith that Skype would get better in the future. If I saw how it could be better, they must as well, right?

Needless to say, they let me down. With little improvement in their software for a couple years, they make a big splash with Skype 5, here’s what their customers think:

Speaking as a customer, that’s sad. The new Skype is terribly unintuitive, buggy, and to get technical, it does stuff I don’t want it to.

Speaking as a designer/strategist this is embarrassing. How can you be the number one Voice Over IP service, have over 650 million users, and have an approval rating of roughly 0%?  The User Interface is awful and over-sized, the updates have been slow coming, and they’re just not listening to their users. Do a better job.

And then there’s the $8.5 billion. With Microsoft buying Skype I’m seriously rethinking calling it quits now. Stay tuned for new business cards.