Earlier this morning, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis settled their lawsuits with eBay and a syndicate of investors in return for a 14 percent stake in the company they founded. The lawsuits were complicating the spin-off of Skype from eBay because the Skype founders still controlled the service’s underlying peer-to-peer technology.
In an interview with me this morning, Marc Andreessen, one of the investors through his new fund Andreessen Horowitz, told me, “The deal was never held up. The money was in escrow and was going to close” even if the lawsuits weren’t settled. The transaction is on track to close later this quarter, and Josh Silvertman will continue to be CEO. → Read More
Back in September, we reported that eBay was attempting to sell off StumbleUpon, the website recommendation service it bought for $75 million in 2007. That didn’t happen. And now the company has been spun off to start life over as an independent startup, backed by new investors and the original founders.
The new company is led by co-founder Garrett Camp, who now steps into the CEO role. Co-founder Geoff Smith also joins Camp in returning to lead the company. The company is backed by Sherpalo Ventures, Accel Partners, and August Capital. David Hornik from August Capital and Sameer Gandhi of Accel Partners join the board. → Read More
After months of anticipation, eBay announced tonight its pilot integration of Skype, the internet telephony giant it acquired last September for approximately $4.1 billion. The announcement was made tonight at eBay Live!, eBay’s annual community conference. Beginning June 19th, US eBay sellers will have the option of adding a SkypeMe button to individual item listings in 14 select categories. Prospective buyers will then be able to contact the sellers by voice or instant messaging. Users can currently add a SkypeMe button to their personal profile, but not to individual items for sale. The categories included in the pilot project will be: Automotive GPS devices Camera and photo lenses and filters Wired networking routers Skype devices VOIP / Internet telephony Diamond solitaire rings Real estate (residential, commercial) Manufacturing and metalworking Beds NBA basketball cards Silver coins Lost in Space collectibles Radio control toys Cars and trucks The categories above were selected because eBay believes that instant communication of such goods would help sales, the items are complex or local delivery is required. The Skype acquisition and its price have been widely questioned since last September. If this pilot integration anywhere near as successful as the 2002 acquisition of PayPal has been then most of those questions may be put to rest. Whether sellers will welcome voice or IM contact from prospective customers remains to be seen. A more sophisticated offering enabling users to, for example, select only IM or IM and voice contact, or a permission request process letting sellers see a user’s eBay reputation before accepting a call would have been a good thing to see. Some observers warn that enabling voice communication via Skype will only make transactions easier to complete outside of eBay auctions, thus cutting into the company’s monetization of transactions. Last week’s announcement of eBay’s new hosted blogs quickly proved interesting when some sellers put their blogs to use in building their reputations by educating prospective buyers in subjects related to their eBay stores. A similar use of auction-specific Skype communication could emerge and prove eBay better at leveraging high-profile acquisitions than other big web players seem to have. → Read More
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