eBay and Skype (continued)

Tom Evslin says in his most recent post on eBay/Skype (which he said in an earlier post was a huge overpay) that Skype and all other "VOIP telcos" will not "make any money directly by being a phone company."

I think that is true.  VOIP feels like IM to me.  A great way to communicate, but impossible to charge for.

But my guess is that AOL, Yahoo, and MSN are making money on IM with targeted advertising today.

And pay per call promises to make that business (once VOIP is in the mix) much more lucrative.

The big question is when Skype opens up.

I want to be able to Skype anyone on AIM, Yahoo, or MSN.  But currently Skype doesn’t allow it.

Tom thinks eBay will make that happen much sooner than Skype would have as a standalone company.

If so, that will be an important result of this deal.

Once all the VOIP services interconnect, we’ll be Skyping each other all the time, the way our kids text each other all the time on their phones.

And that will be surely be a monetizable business.