Niklas Zennstroem and Skype

In 2003, Swedish businessman Niklas Zennstroem 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 Zennstroem 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 Zennstroem’s cutting-edge business savvy. The insightful narrative includes sidebars on some of the company’s innovations, a biographical fact sheet on Zennstroem, and a fact sheet that profiles the company’s achievements. A timeline provides students with a succinct overview of Zenntroem’s life and Skype’s history.