Updates at the foot of the post. Skype has released a fresh set of announcements for its service calledSkype To Go, a platform that is aiming to change the way we people make international calls by offering the VOIP operators low-cost calls from any phone, whether its a landline or a mobile phone. Instead of needing a smartphone or an internet connection, Skype To Go takes any given local or international number, converts it into a unqiue Skype To Go number, which you can then dial into your home or mobile phone, taking advantage of Skype’s low call rates in the process....

Congratulations toSkype. We’ve just learned that the number of Skype users online reached over 27 million today. Yesterday’s high was below 26 million. Therefore, on the same day, Skype has bolted through not only the 26 million threshold, but the 27 million threshold as well. Skype reports an average of 124 million users per month. So why all the activity? Perhaps it’s all the press Skype has been getting over its recent announcements....

Skype, the globally popular voice and video communication service, will embark on amassive hiring spree in 2011. The company expects to hire 350 new employees this year, or around one per day. While the hiring will be “global,” Skype expects most hires to be located in its Palo Alto offices. The company has full intentions of adding to the developer crunch in the Bay Area: Among the 350 jobs we’re adding, many of the roles will be in our Palo Alto office, where our focus is to add superstar engineers to our already super-talented team of engineers who are based all over the globe....

Skype, the company behind the world’s most popular VOIP international calling service of the same name, hastoday announcedits in-app advertising service, allowing advertisers to display ads within the Home tab of the Skype application – starting this week. Online music service Rdio has been testing ads within the app for the past couple of months, helping Skype fine-tune how adverts are displayed within the application. The company admits it will launch the service and then “continue to test and learn a lot more”, making “necessary adjustments along the way”....

Skype is a global brand, a massive business, and a future piece of the Microsoft empire. However, despite the company’s enormous popularity, until its acquisition by Microsoftwas announced, few were curious about the history of the company. That has changed. Now, with billions changing hands for ownership of Skype, wary users and aspiring entrepreneurs are asking how the firm managed to grow to be so large, and so important on every continent....