We recently announced that we're collecting Skype stories. The response has been overwhelming, we've been receiving literally hundreds of them from all over the world, from airline pilots to students to housewives to resort owners to god knows who else. Thanks to everyone sending them -- just keep them coming to mystory@skype.net. Here are a few anonymous abridged examples.

I grew up in the North East of England with my Cousin , we are the same age and were more like brothers, in 1989 he married and moved to South Africa, we both got Skype about a month ago and now we are constantly in touch sharing family pics and chatting, its so much easier and cheaper with skype i would recommend everyone to get it.

Thank you for introducing this wonderful way of keeping in touch. I live in the Caribbean island of St. Lucia and my daughters live in Canada and the USA. Skype enables us to talk to each other all the time for as long as we want. You won't believe how much this means to me because international telephone rates are very costly from this part of the world. Thank you Skype.

skypein is the world's best method to have long distance calls across the globe. (India)

I just want to say a very big thank you for skype.com if it was not for you I would never have spoken to my long lost cousin, I haven't seen or heard from them for 13 years and my brother sent me your skype.com site and now I chat to her all the time, I live in South Africa and she lives in Dallas Texas, so I just want to say a massive thank you so much for getting us in contact again after all these years

Well last week my cell phone rang at 2:30 AM. Roused from a dream I answered it saying, in a very groggy voice, “Hello?” On the other end was a teller at my local bank branch in the Unites States. In a very chippery voice she asked how I was, said thank you for being such a long term customer but noted I needed to fill out additional paperwork for an account we’d opened recently. I asked if she could mail the forms to me. She said that they needed me to come into the branch to sign the forms. I then told her I lived in Bangkok... Thailand. She asked if there was any way I could just pop into the branch to take care of the forms. I told her that was impossible because I was talking to her from Bangkok, THAILAND. It was then that I heard a long pause as she tried to piece things together. After a moment she put me on hold, talked to her manager and we got it all worked out.

I have just known Skype and one day after using it, I am so fascinated by its magic of staying connected with my colleagues 24 hours a day. It's really fantastic! Kudos to you! (Ghana, Africa)