EBay sells 65% of Skype for $1.9 billion US Dollar / 1.33 billion Euro

EBay Inc plans to sell a 65 percent stake in its online phone unit Skype for $1.9 billion to private investors including Silver Lake and a venture firm run by Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen.

Shares in eBay rose 40 cents or 1.8 percent to $22.54 on Nasdaq after the news.

The deal values Skype at $2.75 billion, according to the Internet auction house, which had bought the phone company in 2005 for about $3.1 billion.

The group buying Skype also includes London-based Index Ventures and the Canada Pension Plan, in addition to Silver Lake and Andreessen’s firm Andreessen Horowitz.

The deal lets eBay focus on its PayPal electronic payments service as well as its flagship auction service, the company said.

EBay originally planned to spin off Skype next year. John Donahoe, eBay’s chief executive, said in May that a $2 billion valuation would be low for the growing Internet telephone business.

In 2007, eBay wrote down about $1.4 billion of its investment in Skype, conceding it did not fit in with the rest of its online auction business.

“Skype is a strong standalone business, but it does not have synergies with our e-commerce and online payments business,” Donahoe said in a statement.

EBay expects the deal to close in the fourth quarter. The transaction is not subject to a financing condition.
(Via Reuters)

What eBay’s decision to sell Skype means for the future of VOIP?

Internet auction and services company EBay Inc has reached a deal to sell its online telephony unit Skype to a group of private investors, the New York Times said, citing two people briefed on its plans.

Andreessen Horowitz, a new venture capital firm headed by the Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen, is likely to be among the investors in the group, the paper cited the people as saying. London-based Index Ventures and Silver Lake Partners may also be involved in the deal, one of the people told the paper. The paper added that the value of the deal, which is likely to be announced later on Tuesday, had not been disclosed. EBay spokesman Alan Marks declined to comment on the report.
In May, EBay Chief Executive John Donahoe said a valuation of $2 billion would be low for Skype.

Since eBay bought Skype, the company did not announce major developments nor any innovative new products or services. May it is because of the structure of the size the institution “eBay” has become. Skype was not the leader of digital innovation since years. Thus it has always kept their loyal customers and delivered very good quality of service.

From my point of view there are three key opportunities in the VoiP market for Skype:

1. Reach: Skype is the biggest Online Social Network, twice as big as facebook, but they do not use the full potential of the SNS (Social Networking Software), yet. There are many opportunities to develop new applications, open APIs or useful functions to use Skype as a Social Network.

2. Global telecommunication: Since the start of Google Voice a huge discussion is going on about the future of telecommunication. The network operators such as AT&T or Deutsche Telekom and mobile network operators are getting under pressure because customers can change and manage several telephone number very easily. I think now it’s time for such a service and to roll-out a mainstream VoiP Service like Google Voice - this could be easily realized by Skype as well. Don’t you think?

3. Speed & Innovation: Since the company would be kind of “independable” again. The speed of innovation and business development would be increased rapidly. The goal of the investors might be to really strengthen the company. May be they are also looking to get the global VoiP leadership and then partner or even sell the company again to a major player. Thus this speed and acceleration of innovation might be something very healthy for Skype and I am already thinking about what they could develop for us loyal users.

13 best tools to analyze Twitter (updated)

Here is my selection of the six thirteen best tools and platforms to analyze your Twitter Stream.

Twitter Grader: http://twitter.grader.com/

Twitter Analyzer: http://www.twitteranalyzer.com/

Twitter Counter: http://twittercounter.com/

Twitter Score: http://twitterscore.net/

Twitterholic: http://twitterholic.com

Twinfluence: http://twinfluence.com/

Tweet Effect: http://www.tweeteffect.com

Tweetstats: http://tweetstats.com

Twitalyzer: http://www.twitalyzer.com

Twitter Friends: http://twitter-friends.com

Trendistic: http://trendistic.com
Really interesting tool to track trending topics.

Twitturly: http://twitturly.com
Best way to analyse your outbound links on your twitter stream as well as hot topics.

Micro Plaza: http://microplaza.com
Impressive tool to track and visualize the hot topics of your followers on twitter. A kind of “crowdsourced” news platform personalized through your twitter account.

Next big thing: Market for electronic paper to hit $9.6 billion by 2018

Sales of electronic “paper” displays such those used in the Kindle and Sony Reader will approach $10 billion by 2018, up from an estimated $431 million this year, according to a report released today from DisplaySearch, a technology research firm.

“E-paper displays are taking off with consumers due to their low power consumption and ease of reading, especially in sunlight,” Jennifer Colegrove, DisplaySearch director of display technologies, said in a statement.

Colegrove said the popularity of “green” products is expected to give digital paper a sales boost. Consumers who cringe at throwing away newspapers and magazines can read articles guilt free on devices with e-paper, which sip less power than back-lighted LCD displays.

Video Interview showing some new ePaper devices:

As a result, annual sales of digital book readers are projected to zoom from 1 million units in 2008 to 77 million in 2018.

Because of their thin profile, electronic paper has been embedded in items other than readers too, including magazines, credit cards, store-shelf tags and even clothing.

Via LA Times.

How Nokia will impact the Computer Business

The consumer electronic market is changing rapidly, key-players are changing their positions and trying to catch the consumer in their digital life. Mobile Phone Manufacturer and Computer Companies are getting closer and closer. The new niche of Netbooks already became a big boom, documented by my friend Sascha on NetbookNews.de (Netbooknews.com).

Since a few years computer manufacture offer notebooks and laptops with integrated 3G Sim cards sometimes in combination with data-plans by a mobile network provider. Netbooks are low-cost laptops optimised for surfing the Internet and performing other basic functions. Pioneered by Asustek with the hit Eee PC in 2007, netbooks have since been rolled out by other brands such as HP and Dell.

But also the smartphones become more and more powerful and merge into small “mini computers”. So the gap between a PC and a mobile phone is almost disappearing and the fight for this market between the industry leaders has started.

Nokia just annouced its first laptop computer, Nokia Booklet 3G.

Nokia’s Executive Vice President for Devices, Kai Oistamo, summed it up simply as follows:
“A growing number of people want the computing power of a PC with the full benefits of mobility. We are in the business of connecting people and the Nokia Booklet 3G is a natural evolution for us. Nokia has a long and rich heritage in mobility and with the outstanding battery life, premium design and all day, always on connectivity, we will create something quite compelling. In doing so we will make the personal computer more social, more helpful and more personal.”

Nokia’s first netbook will use Microsoft’s Windows software and Intel’s Atom processor to offer up to 12 hours of battery life while weighing 1.25 kilograms. Research firm IDC expects netbook shipments this year to grow more than 127 percent from 2008 to over 26 million units, outperforming the overall PC market that is expected to remain flat and a phone market which is shrinking some 10 percent.

“Nokia will be hoping that its brand and knowledge of cellular channels will play to its strengths as it addresses this crowded, cut-throat segment,” said Ben Wood, director of research at CCS Insight. “At present we see Nokia’s foray into the netbook market as a niche exercise in the context of its broader business.” Nokia’s choice of Windows software surprised some analysts who had expected the company to use Linux in its first laptop.

WEF’s Welcom is the most exclusive Online Social Network

The World Economic Forum is developing the most exclusive online Social Network, called WELCOM. The name is an acronym for “The World Economic Leaders COMmunity”. The community will inhabit the top 10.000 world leaders, executives, managers, CEO, politicians, visionaries and movers and shakers. The social network will offer many collaboration and communication tools, such as contacts, groups, chat, mail, video call, file sharing etc. So many conversations will happen behind a big “digital security wall”.

Here are three Screenshots of the WEF WELCOM platform:

Description at the Website of the World Economic Forum (WEF):
WELCOM is a powerful new online communication and collaboration space designed specifically for the world’s top decision-makers. With a range of innovative tools for locating and accessing expertise, sharing knowledge, and meeting and working with peers, WELCOM empowers a multistakeholder approach to addressing the most pressing business and global governance challenges.

Has Marketing and Advertising changed?

Yes.
It’s easy to explain:

Illustration by Gapingvoid

Mobile Innovation Week 2009

The Mobile Innovation Week 2009 is a combination of a grassroot developer event as well as an executive management event, called the Mobile Media World. In the following interview with Michael J. O’Farrell, he explains the concept and the basic idea behind this event.

Links:
wwww.mobileinnovationweek.com and www.mobilemediaworld.com.

If you want to know what Social Media is - be nice or leave!

I’m happy to “steal” this great presentation from Faris. It is a brilliant one about social media, full of interesting stories and examples.

The Status of the Mobile Web with Michael J. O’Farrel

I met Michael J. O’Farrel for an interview about the Status of the Mobile Internet in Toronto, Canada.

Michael is Chief Marketing Officer at Zameen Group and Vice Chairman of ooober; as well as a strategic advisor to mobigenics, Graham Sanborn Media and The Centre for Creative Communications at Centennial College. He is Chair of the dotMobi Advisory Group and co-author of the Wiley publication Mobile Internet for Dummies.
Michael is also Advirsor to the @mocom2020 Projekt:
http://www.mocom2020.com/authors-contributors/

Jim Gilmore about the Experience Economy

I recently met Jim Gilmore during an Executive Management Workshop in Toronto, Canada, and talked with him about the Experience Economy and his fascinating management event “ThinkAbout”.

Experience Economy:
Goods and services are no longer enough. To be successful in today’s increasingly competitive environment companies must learn to stage experiences for each one of their individual customers. We have entered the Experience Economy, a new economic era in which all businesses must orchestrate memorable events for their customers that engage each one of them in an inherently personal way.

The workshop was actually on Jim’s birthday - so we had to celebrate this a bit.
Happy Birthday, Jim!

Hillary Clinton about the “twitter revolution”

CNN report that the role of Twitter in the Iranian protests has got the attention of the Pentagon as well as Hilary Clinton.

Here comes Clay Shirky at DMMK’09 in Berlin

iPhone 3GS is out

New iPhone 3GS with 7.2Mbps HSDPA, improved 3 megapixel camera that also does video at 30 fps

Mobile Web Usage - Browser Comparison worldwide

Watch Apple’s presentation at WWDC09 with live video

I am just following the WWDC presentation by Apple on live video and twittering about it at www.twitter.com/montymetzger

Apple opens new opportunities for Mobile Health Market

Twitter Search 2.0

Big changes are in the works for Twitter and their realtime search features, says new Twitter VP of Operations Santosh Jayaram, changes that may spell the end of the status quo both for the microblogging platform in particular and the entire concept of organic searching in general.

Jayaram, who previously worked on Google’s search quality team, spoke two weeks ago at a TIEcon 2009 preview conference about the changes Twitter is planning to implement to their search features, providing attendees with a compelling look at how the microblogging platform may rise up to challenge even Google in terms of indexing Web 2.0 content.

“Twitter will begin crawling and indexing content linked from Tweets, not just the tweets themselves anymore.”

The most major change Jayaram spoke about concerns how Twitter indexes content. Until now, Twitter’s realtime search feature has been limited to Tweets themselves; the content of each Tweet is indexed and searchable through Twitter’s search engine. That, Jayaram says, is going to change - at an unspecified point in the near future, Twitter will begin crawling and indexing content linked from Tweets, not just the tweets themselves anymore.

Look out, Google - Twitter’s got your number. The change to Twitter’s search feature is huge, and it all boils down to analytical data, and the immense value that such information carries with it. Twitter’s ability to track realtime trends already puts Google’s to shame - and taking that ability off the twitter.com domain means that the microblogging platform is poised to become the internet’s premiere Web 2.0 content index. Even the brief delay of a few hours in Google’s search engine results represents eons in the hyperspeed context of the modern internet. Twitter can fill in that gap, and Jayaram provided us with some juicy details about how they’re going to be doing that.

One of the ways that Twitter is going to increase the relevancy of its search engine is by introducing a Twitter “reputation” ranking system, says Jayaram. Currently, when searching a popular trending topic, or clicking its link on the Twitter sidebar, users are usually overwhelmed with a wealth of “hollow content” like retweets, comments, and so on. Twitter’s reputation ranking system will change that by providing users with an authoritative view of trending topics and keywords on Twitter, instead of just flinging users into a chronological timeline.

That change alone will improve Twitter’s search by leaps and bounds. I can’t wait to find out more about when we can expect to see these changes implemented, and how Twitter plans to show users the data that it collects about off-site content.

Via Twittown:
http://www.twittown.com/twitter/twitters-new-search-might-just-change-everything

MOCOM 2020 - Future Vision Video

Today Christian Magel and Monty Metzger have presented the Video of key results of the MOCOM 2020 project at Next’09.

Speaking at Next’09 in Hamburg tomorrow

We are preparing the final materials for my speech about Mocom2020.com tomorrow. The next conference is one of the leading digital media conferences in germany.

We will do a world premiere of the final Mocom2020.com Video.

You can follow me on twitter at
www.twitter.com/montymetzger