I don’t want to add much to the commentary, but rather point to those pieces I think really do justice to the whole discussion and thought process around the whole Skype purchase by eBay.
NevOn
Check out the diagram!
I’ve personally held a vision that Skype repesents the eBay (eBayization) of communications. I’ve used this vision to inform my own comments on Skype, its community, relationships, and what it is good for: “facilitating conversations.” My posts here, here and here reference eBay-related directions starting two years ago, from September 2003. I’m sure there are more if I looked. So, when I saw the announcement this morning it wasn’t a complete surprise. It was clear a deal was going down last week. Still the magnitude of the deal still makes one gasp.
Skype could prove to be the Nokia of Estonia. A few years from now, when deal earns itself out, Skype could diffuse a generation of tech entrepreneurs and investors. In Nokia’s case, many of them started companies that were later brought back into the fold, benefiting the company and the country. A unique capability cluster is being developed here in VoIP, P2P, Security and Social Software that will give rise to new startups.
Right now there are three global Internet giants, eBay, Amazon and Google. These are genuine Internet companies, they grew out of it, they couldn’t exist without it and, while each of them has its own caste on things, they will come more and more to resemble each other.
