Niklas Zennstrom and Skype

by Jason Porterfield

In 2003, Swedish businessman Niklas Zennstrom sent out an email message to his friends, asking them to take a look at a new Web site called Skype.com. With that message, he launched one of the most popular Internet services of the early twenty-first century. Skype revolutionized the way that people communicated by offering free and low-cost phone calls to anywhere in the world through the Internet. In the years since Zennstrom sent that e-mail message, more than six hundred million people worldwide have become Skype users. This informational text is aligned to content areas in social science and technology, providing readers with a compelling look at the technological world of Internet start-ups and Zennstrom s cutting-edge business savvy. The insightful narrative includes sidebars on some of the company s innovations, a biographical fact sheet on Zennstrom, and a fact sheet that profiles the company s achievements. A timeline provides students with a succinct overview of Zenntrom s life and Skype s history.

130 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2013