eBay/Skype vs. Joltid - an Insider's View

Here is an interview and opinion from someone who was in the VoiP business at the time that eBay bought Skype. It sounds like he has had the same opinion that Xwj has expressed here - someone had to be completely insane to make the deal they did.

Personally, I'm still not convinced. I still think that the whole thing is a set-up, and it will all suddenly vanish when the publicity value is gone. I have no respect for anyone at either Skype or eBay, but even I don't think they are this stupid. If it turns out that they are, then they fully deserve anything and everything that happens to them.

As a side note, reading all of this free publicity Skype is getting has made it clear that Skype marketing has succeeded in passing off their bogus number of "registered users". Now they are up to something approaching 500 million. No one even bothers to ask any more where that number comes from, or most importantly how many of them have been created by the spammers and pornographers who infest Skype space, and who create accounts at the rate of thousands a day. Or how many are inactive, abandoned, duplicates, or otherwise do not represent one unique user?

I know I have complained about their bogus "registered users" count before. But the reason it is significant now is that it proves that Skype Marketing believes the old saying, "If you repeat something long enough, and loud enough, eventually it will be accepted as truth". I still believe that is exactly what is going on with the Joltid panic now as well. The Sky Is Falling! The Sky Is Falling!

jw 8/8/2009