eBay and Skype (continued)

Well the votes in the comments section of my prior post were mostly positive on this move by eBay.

For those who missed it, eBay announced that it was paying $2.6bn for Skype this morning plus an additional earnout which apparently could take the purchase price to $4bn.

First, let me congratulate the investors who had the foresight to invest in Skype.  They include Bessemer, DFJ, Index, and Mangrove.  Well done guys.  Also, let me say that Niklas and Janus are in the top tier of entrepreneurs having now done Kazaa and Skype.  That's impressive as hell.

I suspect the Street will not like it and will see it as an overpay.

But I believe that PayPal was a bargain at $1.5bn and that Skype will be a bargain at $2.6bn.

Maybe Meg is turning eBay into something more like IAC, a diversified holding company of premium Internet assets.

If so, then I get this deal.

But I still don't buy the synergy stuff, even though most of the commenters see it in spades.

Comments

[David Gibbons]

hindsight is 20/20 & its clear from the press release that skype & paypal is the initial focus ... but what we all missed was a much bigger play ... from the press releases ... "ecommerce communications could be monetized on a pay-per-call basis through Skype". This market dwarf ebay's existing business - think of "the garage sale" of global on-demand professional services. I've long been convinced that the B2C and C2C professional services market is "the next big thing", it looks like ebay agrees. Imagine, browsing and selecting attorneys baused on their $/min rate on skype ... the mind boggles ....

[Raj Bala]

Facilitating such easy user communication could lead to easy circumvention of ebay listing fees.

[David Gibbons]

FYI - here's an analysis on the prof services marketplace opportunity ... http://tinyurl.com/apeg5 ... enjoy.

Predictions:
1) eBay + Skype > dwarfs eBay's market
2) eBay + Skype > more profitable than eBay
3) insane ammount of jobs will be created globally if they get this right

[Rick Stratton]

If it's just about buyer/seller communication - why couldn't they have done something cheaper?

There's gotta be a larger strategy involved.

[Manu Sharma]

>If it's just about buyer/seller communication - why couldn't they have done something cheaper?

Rick, because then they'd miss out on the millions of new members they'll acquire through the deal (there's only 1% overlap). Besides, this isn't just about the marketplace (where it's perfectly justified) Ebay will also continue to run Skype's standalone business of internet telephony which is going to be quite big in itself.

Here's how I see Ebay's strategy behind the deal.

[Rick Stratton]

Millions of new members? I don't buy that. What Skype user doesn't already use ebay as a buyer or a seller? The number of ebay users using skype has to be less than 2%.

[Maybe I don't understand ebay's foreign market.]

[Oliver Thylmann]

David is right. I wanted to post something similar last night but will not let David's post speak a little bit for itself. Here a little thought experience.

I want to repaid my iPod. I enter that "product", with my SkypeID, and repair people bid on me, see I am still online, call me, we are done.

I know this can be huge because I have spent the last few years setting up a performance marketing system that now outs Google on prime portals in Germany and have just moved on to build something new... and the general market we are talking about will be huge and there are endless of opportunities.

[Oliver Starr "stitch"]

Congratulations, you've certainly had some amazing comments from the readers of your blog. Ebay would be well served to read this to see the creative ideas people have posted.

Personally, I didn't see the value at first, and actually posted that I didn't feel that this was a good match for eBay several days ago, but since then I've had time to think about the rationale and realize that this might turn out to be one of the smarter acquisitions in early Web2.0 history.

To understand the value (and clearly many of your readers do)it is important to look not only at the present day numbers but at the reach the combination provides. Skype is a low entry threshold technology unlike eBay or PayPal...there is no financial exposure, no risk of a bad transaction, no pain if it doesn't work for you. That's why there have been some 50 million plus downloads.

For eBay this is first about gaining new marketshare and secondly about facilitating transactions between exisiting customers.

I think there are also many enhancements to existing auctions that the Skype acquisition will support...what about real-time auctions using conference calling with pre-qualified buyers? In physical auctions, the ability to up your bid quickly in reponse to other buyers is one reason that auctions are so popular for the seller - the final price is frequently much higher for the competition then it would have been in a less dynamic environment.

I won't give away all my thoughts here...I have a few more here: Mobile Weblog Post
but I do think, in retrospect that my initial visceral reaction was wrong and that this deal is good for all the parties involved, eBay, Skype and the consumers.

-Oliver Starr "stitch"
http://www.mobile-weblog.com

[David Gibbons]

more thoughts ... the "passive" side of a professional services marketplace is an "attention marketplace" which dovetails quite nicely with what Steve Gillmor's been predicting about mining attention metadata. SkypeBay could let us list our attention for sale on a $/min basis - "fulfilled" via Skype. Would be easier to impliment than the professional services side - also fulfils Seth Godin's prophecies of sell-side advertising (if I get what Seth's on about - marketing's not my strength)

Analysis here ... http://tinyurl.com/afkpw

[Cem Sertoglu]

http://investor.ebay.com/downloads/050912ebay.pdf

eBay's presentation puts it in the context of "The Power of 3" and it is beginning to come together with me.

Adjacent to the synergies they claim, I like how they are viewing their challenge as "removing friction".

Friction: Trust -> Solution: Ratings
Friction: Payments -> Solution: PayPal
Friction: Communications -> Solution: Skype

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