Gawker
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buybacks
How eBay Can Have $3 Billion in the Bank and Still Be Broke
Look at eBay's books and it wouldn't seem to have money problems. But it's running a garage, unloading would-be Digg competitor StumbleUpon, and hopes to sell Internet phone service Skype. Why? More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by HeloiseKapis: Billions of their cash was also spent buying back stock trying to prop up the price (to no avail). Unloading StumbleUpon... 2 Responses | Other threads
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web 2.0
The bubble that wasn't
Jason Calacanis, the mop-haired founder of Mahalo, an overfunded Web directory, is musing on Twitter about "tickers and rallies past" — a Proustian substitution of stock markets for madeleines. But what, exactly, does he have to be nostalgic for?
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By Owen ThomasComment by JasonCalacanis: JCAL still in the game 4.87m uniques last month & Knicks got $40m in cap space 2010 LeBron coming December 15th Project A threads the... 4 Responses | Other threads
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earnings
eBay would like you to forget about Skype now
You rarely see a photo of John Donahoe, eBay's Dennis-the-Menace lookalike CEO. But today's a good day to pull him out from under Meg Whitman's shadow. The auction deathstar's Q3 net income was $492.2 million, or 38 cents a share. Much better than last year, when chirpy little upstart Skype — a Whitman acquisition — forgot to destroy AT&T and instead cost the company a billion bucks. (Photo by AP/Ron Edmonds)
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By Paul BoutinComment by buzzzkilll: Looks less like Dennis the Menace and more like eBay's future ex-CEO to me. more » | Other threads
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breakdowns
Skype apologizes for Chinese privacy breach
Josh Silverman, president of eBay's Skype Internet-calling service, has issued a mea culpa blog post. The short version: Tom Online, Skype's Chinese partner, is storing instant messages sent over the service — and storing them insecurely, to boot. [Skype Blogs] -
great moments in customer service
Skype and Paypal take weeks to resolve identity theft
A tipster writes us to complain about eBay subsidiaries Skype and PayPal's response to identity theft. Reading his letter, which we've copied below, you'll see the problem is not so much that Skype and PayPal wouldn't refund the money the thief spent using our tipster's account. Rather, it's how inefficiently the companies responded to the problem. They required our tipster send three fraud reports and a letter over several weeks before finally explaining that no, they wouldn't give him his money back. Another customer with the same problem writes on the Skype forum: " Is there no support here? Is Skype asleep?" More »
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Comment by stiletto_the_wise: Or, how about--don't give PayPal (or any company) the ability to withdraw money from your BANK ACCOUNT? You'd think... 2 Responses | Other threads
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mine is bigger
Niklas Zennström's vikings raid Irish Sea yacht race
At Skandia Cowes Week on the Isle of Wight, Niklas Zennström's racing yacht Ran won five of seven races amongst the largest class of boats, and won the overall title without having to race on the final day. Zennström joined the competitive yachting class after successfully suckering eBay into buying Skype. His latest project, Joost, however, couldn't generate enough hype to raise the spinnaker, with the online video startup's sails continuing toluftluff in dead winds. (Photo by Rick Tomlinson)
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By Jackson WestComment by Matthew_Maurice: @BarneyRubble: And the boat's name should be in italics, Ran. more » | Other threads
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launches
Skype 4.0 Beta: It's all about telemarketing
The acquisition of Skype has been something of an albatross around eBay's neck — what, exactly, does an auction site need voice-over-IP and chat software for? With the new release, it's starting to make a bit more sense. Not as a chat client for early-adopter technology fetishists, but as a telemarketing tool. Here's how! More »
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By Jackson WestComment by Abhi 2.0: @Dror ... trick question from VW ... broadband speeds in India will ensure that Skype's most useful feature will be... more » | Other threads
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voip
AT&T plots Skype rival
AT&T and as many as 15 other big phone companies are planning to launch a rival to Skype in 2009. Why don't they just buy it from eBay? That seems easier. [GigaOm]
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By Owen ThomasComment by tootingbec: Ya know, the telcos have legacy businesses to protect from services like Skype, and right now only nerds have heard... more » | Other threads
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earnings
Everything but auctions boosts eBay's bottom line
Recently anointed eBay CEO John Donahoe thumped his chest over the auction giant's first-quarter earnings. He praised a "diverse portfolio of businesses" as revenues jumped 24 percent to $2.19 billion and earnings rose 22 percent to $459.7 million. The problem: Younger businesses like Skype and PayPal aren't as profitable as eBay's core e-commerce business, which is why profit margins dropped. [WSJ]
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By Owen ThomasComment by mattearle: why link to a newspaper still stubbornly following the subscriber model? why? more » | Other threads
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ebay
eBay kind of, maybe, finally considering a Skype sale
Asked whether eBay would sell PayPal or Skype, new eBay CEO John Donahoe denied any chance of a PayPal sale but said the company planned to "test the synergies" resulting from the Skype integration. The questioner, Fortune's Adam Lashinsky, later told SAI that Donahoe's answer meant he would give Skype a year "to show synergies with eBay" before selling it. Odds are it'll happen. In October, eBay took a $1.4 billion asset-impairment charge on the company it purchased for $2.5 billion in 2005.
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Comment by well-seasoned: New CEOs typically dump previous CEOs' acquisitions, often at firesale prices, while they re-set expectations so they can exceed them. more » | Other threads
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skype
Skype to lay off 30 in European offices
Skype will fire 30 employees in London and Estonia, Om Malik reports. Skype, a subsidiary of eBay, has not yet confirmed the news. The 30 headed for the door will join Skype cofounder Niklas Zennstrom, who in October resigned as Skype CEO as eBay took a $1.4 billion asset-impairment charge on the company it purchased for $2.5 billion in 2005. More » -
your privacy is an illusion
German police struggle to tap Skype calls
Joerg Ziercke, president of Germany's Federal Police Office, told reporters that Skype "creates grave difficulties for us" because of its strong encryption. A traditional land-line phone can be tapped very easily, as can a cell phone — but voice-over-IP calls are routed over countless paths across the Internet, making them difficult to intercept. Ziercke said they were not asking eBay to leave "back doors open" to Skype for law-enforcement authorities. Of course, it's likely the National Security Agency has already done that and passes along any significant intercepted calls to U.S. allies. The other theory? That this is merely a headfake to criminals. If the Polizei does have Skype wiretapping abilities, they'll want to encourage evildoers to speak freely. That's it: I'm switching my secret communications back to smoke signals. -
rumormonger
Is Google looking to walk off with Skype?
According to London's Web entrepreneurs, Google has been flirting with a bid for Skype, eBay's overpriced VOIP startup. Guardian blogger Jemima Kiss is just the latest to offer eBay CEO Meg Whitman advice in the guise of rumor after a $900 million writedown: Last month Portfolio's Felix Salmon recommended it sell to News Corp. Compared to its other pushes into the telecom business, like the Android cell-phone operating system and a hot pursuit of wireless spectrum, buying Skype may prove downright cheap. Skype has been running ragged ever since August's major outage. Perhaps even Google isn't above some bargain-hunting.
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Comment by macbeach: Well, doesn't eBay specialize in selling slightly used and/or broken things? I'll start the bidding at a buck... more » | Other threads
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wall street
Analysts stop sniping and give eBay another bid
Skype may be broken in more ways than one, but after taking day or two to reflect, some analysts are back on the eBay bandwagon. JupiterResearch's Patti Freeman Evans told me that "without the Skype writedown, things look pretty good." She said eBay's users are active in the U.S. and abroad. It's all because they've refocused on their core auctions business. How is the rest of the field reacting? More »
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Comment by rebump: They are in great shape for a few more quarters at the minimum. Considering the foreign exchange rate and how... more » | Other threads
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breakdowns
Skype is the gift that keeps on taking. Yesterday, the Internet phone service weighed down record revenues from eBay with a massive writeoff. Today's its just annoying customers. The site is reporting technical difficulties with Skype gift certificates that have been issued since Tuesday. [Heartbeat] -
earnings
eBay reported record revenue but a huge loss — -$936 million on $1.89 billion in revenue — because of a $900 million write-off of its Skype purchase. This is the first quarterly loss for eBay since 1999. Whoops. [AP] -
embargo breakers
MySpace friends Skype, adds VOIP to profiles
Looks like tomorrow's rumored MySpace announcement is, as we heard, related to an instant-messaging deal. According to a press release just sent to Valleywag, the big announcement is a partnership between the News Corp.-owned social network and eBay's Skype, which offers both VOIP and IM. What a pairing, between the undervalued MySpace, likely worth billions more than the $580 million News Corp. paid, and the written-down Skype, now worth billions less than eBay thought it was. The bottom line: Now you can call your MySpace friends right from the "add me" page! The full press release after the jump. More » -
followup
Hey, why doesn't eBay put Skype up for auction?
Felix Salmon of Portfolio thinks online auction-house eBay should sell Internet telephony service Skype to News Corp. for use in its social network, MySpace. Salmon thinks that a free calling service fits more naturally with MySpace, which is, after all, about communication. While that may be true, eBay will likely have to accept a much lower price than what they originally paid. Even Skype cofounder Niklas Zennstrom is conceding that Skype was overvalued from the beginning. If even a founder is doubtful of Skype's value, though, why should eBay strike a private deal to sell the unit? We say let the marketplace rule. eBay should list Skype on, well, eBay, and auction it off. Just imagine how much profit it will make from the listing fees.
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By Tim FaulknerComment by callitasiseeit: Put it up for auction at the height of skepticism about Skype? Maybe they'll pull a Babycenter, sell it for... more » | Other threads
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reality check
Jajah adds to eBay's click-to-call nightmare
We'd hardly blame Meg Whitman if, after this week, she decided to hang up on the phone business altogether. On Monday eBay said they were taking a $1.4 billion charge related to their acquisition of VOIP startup Skype. On Tuesday, we noted that one of Whitman's major goals in buying Skype, bolstering its auction business in China, where rivals were using click-to-call features on their auctions to close sales, has turned into a complete failure. And then, yesterday, things somehow managed to get worse. More »
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Comment by Reginaldo: There was never any deal between Jajah and eBay. Spin all the way. [www.theregister.co.uk] That is all. more » | Other threads
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ebay
Skype's failure to make money fast
In an interview just prior to his departure as CEO of Skype, Niklas Zennstrom provided insight into why the internet telephony company was a poor investment for eBay.Some people may want to monetize faster, but the key is to figure out what is the right speed of monetization. If you act too aggressively, there is a real risk you will lose the huge active user base.
Implicit in this statement is the recognition that Skype needs to make more money off its users, faster. Quite a trick for a free phone service. But still, not moving too fast? It's been four years and Skype has 220 million users! Would Zennstrom wait until Skype has half a billion users? A billion? More » -
geography lesson
China is where Skype really failed eBay
In Kara Swisher's otherwise excellent analysis on AllThingsD of the Skype writeoff's effect on Facebook, there's a string of nonsense that desperately bears correction. Swisher ramblingly suggests that eBay bought Skype for some kind of ability to target ads and premium offerings to the VOIP service's users. Nonsense. It's well-documented that eBay CEO Meg Whitman got the idea on a trip to China, where she saw that users of rival auction sites were using VOIP calls and instant messaging to close sales — a useful feature in a country still getting used to conducting business electronically, rather than face to face. Adding Skype to eBay's auctions in China, she hoped, would boost its market share. No such luck. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by VanOwen: BS. it was ebay's abject fear of google pre gtalk launch that made them pull the trigger at such a... more » | Other threads
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deals
Skype's loss could be Facebook's, too
When it rains, it pours. And eBay's recent billion-dollar writeoff of Skype, the VOIP startup it bought two years ago, could have an impact on Facebook's negotiations to sell a stake in the social network, at a high valuation, to Microsoft or another large backer. (Both Bernhard Warner and Kara Swisher make this observation, which I'll attribute to great minds thinking alike.) Skype's financial failure is a sobering reminder of the risks of overpaying for a startup. And all of a sudden, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is playing diffident, saying Facebook "might be a fad." But what may be forgotten in this latest skeptical turn to the hype cycle is that underpaying has risks, too. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Kingsley 2.0: They can fix that perception by making funny videos: [www.bringtheloveback.com] more » | Other threads
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exits
Skype rains on eBay's parade
Niklas Zennstrom, CEO of Skype, and eBay are paying the price for the disastrous acquisition of the Internet telephony service two years ago. The Skype cofounder has stepped down from his CEO role, and eBay will take a $1.4 billion asset-impairment charge — more than half of the $2.5 billion they paid for the company. The silver lining? eBay only has to pay $530 million of a potential $1.7 billion earn-out to Skype investors, since Skype is performing so poorly. With the shareholder payment out of the way, eBay can more easily put Skype on the auction block. And Zennstrom can focus on Joost, his new online-video venture. -
followup
Skype tries to kiss and make up with jilted users
As an apology for its two-day absence from their lives, Skype is giving paying subscribers seven days of free service. Skype hopes that its "faithful," "love"-filled, relationship can be mended through the simple gesture of buying a gift. Flowers, candy, a contract credit — it's all the same, right?
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By Tim FaulknerComment by seanpercival: I dont even remember what i paid for skype, but it was very little. Isnt 7 days worth like under... more » | Other threads
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followup
Skype's login problems solved, PR problems remain
Skype has finally resolved the "outage" that the eBay-owned Internet telephony service experiences last week. The explanation provided: It's all Microsoft's fault. The software company has a regular schedule for downloading updates to its Windows operating system. Skype engineers claim that a large number of reboots following Microsoft's "Patch Tuesday" disrupted its network. Microsoft makes for a convenient scapegoat — especially considering the fact that it offers a competing VOIP service, Windows Live Messenger — but this excuse doesn't hold water. More »
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By Tim FaulknerComment by kari.patila: They got mentioned on Channel9, but I was expecting a more emotional response than merely calling foul on the claim.... more » | Other threads
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followup
Skype declares its software "deficient"
After an outage that's starting on its second day, Skype, the eBay-owned Internet calling service, continues to reassure its users through its Heartbeat status blog that, although significant login problems persist, Skype's programmers are making progress and that many Asian and European users are now able to use, once again, their computers as telephones. However, the periodic updates do little to clarify the situation. More » -
breakdowns
Skype experiencing major outage
Skype, the Internet calling service, is experiencing major issues preventing users from logging in. The "outage" began yesterday evening and is likely to go unresolved for the next 12 to 24 hours. In the meantime, Skype would "like to thank everyone who has taken the time to send us their thoughts, concerns and good wishes. It means the world to those working so hard to resolve this thing." Little consolation to anyone who has become dependent on the peer-to-peer VOIP service as a telephone substitute. Skype's provided little details, calling it a "software issue" — Skype is software! That's like calling a hurricane a weather problem. Sounds like someone is covering for a drunken ... oh, never mind.
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By Tim FaulknerComment by renaissancechambara: Its been screwed for two days and when I managed to log in Skye Out seems to send your calls... more » | Other threads
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voip
In Estonia, Skype girds for battle
Why does eBay subsidiary Skype have a Swedish military transport in its Estonian development center? Could it be preparing to take the fight for VOIP customers against new competitors like Ooma to a new battlefield? Read more. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Eric Rice: Wait, it's a big fuck-off vehicle with big fuck-off tires, but no big fuck-off guns? Or do they magically appear... more » | Other threads
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techmeme
What we're arguing about today
Every day's debate day in the blogosphere! Here's what blog aggregator Techmeme says is important. More » -
dogster
Bubble bubble: Hell, I refused $550 million twice before breakfast
Three of today's stories provide a perfect lesson in recognizing a bubble. The astute reader will recognize the common themes. More » -
ebay
EBay rearranges deck chairs
EBay has two important properties outside its core auction business: PayPal and Skype. The former is a profitable enterprise now threatened (eBay thinks) by Google's new Checkout payment system — thus eBay's recent decision to ban Google Checkout as a requested payment system. The latter is a money-sucker some blame for the company's staggering stock. More » -
remainders
Remainders: Don't go near Bill Gates without your biohazard suit
- Animal Magazine editors sneak into Apple's 24-hour store without waiting in line. Then they pull the classy move of setting its website as the test computers' home page. They also confirm that the SNL staff shouldn't head out without makeup. [Animal Magazine via Blogebrity]
- Boing Boing gets giddy over DRM protestors (pictured doing an Intel ad), because no cause is worth fighting for more than your right to play Beyonce on your iPod. [Boing Boing]
- Web 2.0 jokes make it to the hipster lit comics. LOOK WHAT YOU PEOPLE HAVE WROUGHT. [Cat and Girl]
- Jobster acquires Jobby, making the cutest headline ever. [TechCrunch]
- Streamcast, the guys behind old-and-busted file-sharer Morpheus, have expanded their lawsuit against Kazaa, Skype and Skype's founders to include Skype's new owner, eBay — or as Techdirt puts it, "Streamcast realizes eBay is the one with the money." [Techdirt]
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waggable
Waggable: Skype snipe
On the day of Skype's announcement of free PC-to-phone calling, the peanut gallery's already snickering. A reader sends in this IM conversation: More » -
om malik
Om Malik Not All Over Free SkypeOut
Nothing gets past Om Malik. The tech blogger is quickly becoming the industry standard for voice-over-IP news. But as of press time, he hasn't blogged about free Skype-to-phone calling, announced today at Skype's official blog. More »
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By Nick DouglasComment by Anonymous: Malik's a senior writer at B2, not an editor, and as such is known to engage in real reporting that... more » | Other threads
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china
Official anti-censorship code words
Another bad day for Chinese dissidents as Yahoo gets accused of ratting out a third writer to the government, Skype admits to censoring Chinese conversations, and the NYT Magazine running a 10-page piece on Google's China trouble. More » -
business 2.0
Dumbest moments in business, Valley cut
Culled from Business 2.0, here are the dumbest moves made by the Silicon Valley geniuses. More »
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