Skype/Ebay - the Dominoes are About to Fall - We Are Stardust...

WOW. What else can you say about this? I sure didn't think this would happen, and clearly Skype has thrown itself wholly into the Internet world and e-commerce space. No doubt the opportunities are tremendous, and Skype will be in a very different business now. The idea of adding voice to the online buying process is a great idea, and I can certainly see why eBay would want Skype for this, not to mention theiir 50+ million "users". No one is really sure how big Skype's true user base is, but no doubt it's big enough to significantly expand eBay's footprint in a hurry. I'm not what all those Skype developers will do now - lots of creative energy out there, and eBay just opens a whole new world of ways to put this to work.

That said, the idealism is gone, and the Woodstock era is over. It's a business, and they know this as much as anybody else. I'm very excited about this, and happy for what Skype has accomplished, and what this may signal in the weeks to come. The dominoes have been falling for a few weeks now, but this is a big one, ushering in the billion dollar valuation of VoIP companies. For $7 million in revenues last year, Skype has earned a fortune for their backers, and no doubt the dealmakers will be in overdrive now. All eyes will now shift to Vonage, no doubt.

So much for my idea about Apple and Skype. I still think the Skypod could be a great product!

My posting for yesterday was about Vonage, and I made a reference to the peer to peer players - Skype, Free World Dialup and Voiceglo. I had no idea that barely 12 hours later they would be the center of the news.

So, here we go again. As the dominoes fall, you have to ask - who's next? I'll come back to the other two - Free World Dialup and Voiceglo. These are very different operations, and both bring a lot to the table. Jeff Pulver has been nuturing FWD along for years, and has paralleled many of the innovations that Skype has brought, so they know the deal. Voiceglo has been very creative in its own way, and from what I can tell have the largest peer to peer community out there after Skype. They may be a distant number 2, but if you can't be number 1, that's not a bad place to be. Look for both of these companies to receive a lot of attention in the very near future.

I'm not an early morning poster, so I'll share the keen insights from those who have already done the thinking and the writing. Andy Abramson's VoIP Watch had this one nailed before it happened. There's a reason why Andy is hosting the Blogger's Roundtable at VON next week! And of course, Jeff Pulver has made his early morning comments. Happy Birthday Jeff!