Word: skyping
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...eBay spending $2.6 billion to buy a $60 million Internet phone company called Skype that has yet to turn a profit? During a presentation to investors this week, eBay CEO Meg Whitman used 75 PowerPoint slides to justify her intense, and expensive, interest in Skype, but analysts were skeptical. Whitman enthusiastically pitched the idea that Skype, a free service that lets users talk to each other via computer, would increase eBay's transaction volume by making it easier for buyers and sellers to talk to each other. She theorized that eBay could start collecting new fees from its users...
...deal is a desperate attempt by eBay to find new subscribers and to stem fraud. EBay is not alone on the internet phone bandwagon. In the past few weeks, Google introduced Google Talk, a voice/instant message service, and Microsoft announced that it would buy Teleo, a competitor to Skype...
...Yahoo and AOL have their own voice-over-instant message services. All these deals have generated as much confusion as excitement. Is eBay just trying to acquire Skype's 54 million users? Maybe GoogleTalk will let you click to dial a phone number of someone you've just Googled. Will Teleo mean yet more software bundled with Windows? None of these questions are likely to be answered any time soon. Making phone calls over the Web (also known by the acronym VOIP, for Voice Over Internet Protocol) is one of those radical new technologies that surely will change our lives...
...Similarly, skeptics thought making calls via PC wouldn't catch on; Skype has 54 million users, and says it is adding 150,000 new ones every day. All that potential, of course, may not be worth the $4.1 billion that eBay has pledged unless the company can use it to truly transform its business. To do that, eBay will have to integrate voice into the fabric of each listings. Bidders on eBay are comfortable emailing sellers with questions about an item; will they use a "Skype me" button just as readily? More importantly, will eBay sellers pay for the privilege...
...Motorola will next year introduce a "significant" number of wi-fi phones. Indeed, Motorola has made a deal with the company that many phone firms associate with the Devil; its mix of products next year is expected to include a phone loaded with software from Luxembourg-based VoIP firm Skype, whose users can make free VoIP calls to each other. Skype has signed up 51 million "registered" users of its software, though probably less than half of those actually use it. Many Skype users call from their PCs, laptops and handheld devices via fixed or wi-fi-accessed broadband lines...