Despite being reportedly not for sale,
Skype sure does seem to be flirting with a lot of folks. The latest and
greatest in the rumour mill department is that
eBay wants to buy Skype. Presumably the
plan would be to enable buyers and sellers to communicate with each other directly via the site. That kind of
immersion could be a pretty golden way to secure more eyeball time, but it also seems a little tangential for a
company like eBay. What do you think?
[Via John Battelle]
1. God forbid that eBay miss the VOIP boat and have to rely on Yahoo or Google as a partner to provide VOIP service/integration.
This is strategic and defensive. Its a play for EBAY to hedge their future and the future of the internet. EBAY cannot afford to let Skype get picked up by GOOG or YHOO or anyone else. Its expensive enough for the big three to compete with each other. There is no need to give up any additional power to them....or let anyone else into the arena.
So, Traffic is the #1 reason. But they also can't afford to let YHOO or GOOG dominate a segment of the internet that they might need to leverage in the future. The specifics of those needs don't need to be fully thought out by eBay. They just know that they can't afford to miss the boat. 2-3 billion is nothing for eBay.
Posted at 8:05PM on Dec 18th 2005 by Isaac Garcia