By the time it introduced a "version 2.0" with video calls and a new design in 2005, it boasted 54 million registered users worldwide. But it was free, simple, and released at a time when internet speeds were climbing. Developed by two Scandinavians who’d previously worked on file-sharing service Kazaa, Skype wasn’t the first company to offer voice over internet protocol (or VoIP) services. Where cellphones had severed the link between telephones and landlines, Skype went a step further: it separated voice calling from the telephone entirely. And they were a sign of how profoundly a simple interface choice could change an entire environment. Ringtones weren’t just a signal that someone wanted to talk to you - they said something about who you were. "With priorities like these, it’s no wonder we have so many problems in the world today." "In 2003, it seems that a person’s most valued and public expression of self seems to be embodied in the customized features of his cell phone," wrote one woman in a BBC opinion poll. Shortly before the company put out the first of several betas in August of 2003, an analyst report predicted that ringtone sales would soon bring in more money than CD singles. Mobile phones - to which Skype was an indirect competitor - were becoming ubiquitous, and so were the personalized sounds that went with them. The year that Skype launched its calling service, the world was in the midst of a sonic crisis: the ringtone.
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