Big jump in number of people making phone calls online

The Pew Internet and American Life Project just wrapped up a poll last week and have put out some new data about a big jump in use of the internet to make phone calls.

Their main finding? A surprising one quarter of American adult internet users (24%) have placed phone calls online. That amounts to 19% of all American adults. On any given day 5% of internet users are going online to place phone calls.

Both figures are marked increases from previous readings in surveys by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. Using different question wording, the Project found in February 2007 that 8% of internet users (6% of all adults) had placed calls online and 2% of internet users were making calls on any given day. At various points during the 2000s Pew asked similar questions and found that at most about a tenth of internet users had ever used the internet to place calls and the daily figure never rose above 1% of internet users.

I thought that this was particularly interesting data in light of Microsoft’s recent $8.5 billion purchase of Skype.

Here is some of the graphic material:

Growth in online phone callers

Noticed any changes based on this with end user stations in the library? Is the service blocked or do you accommodate people with special facilities? Is this one divide libraries don’t support bridging?

Stephen