Skype: lots of spin from eBay but few facts

[mandy]

Every quarter, one hopes EBay will provide some clarity on Skype, and what kind of success the company is having with its $2.6 billion purchase. And every quarter, one is left scratching his head, pondering over meaningless metrics. It is baffling because eBay calls it third division, and engine of future growth. However unlike core eBay and PayPal divisions, Skype’s performance is a riddle wrapped in an enigma...

Meg Whitman, on the call, pointed out that Skype added “nearly 19 million users for a total of 113 million users worldwide.”

That’s an uptick of nearly 19% quarter over quarter. I should be impressed, but I am not. Why? Because registered users don’t necessarily mean active users. It would be great to see the active user base, not registered users because people can register and never use the service...

full article: http://gigaom.com/2006/07/20/skype-all-t...not-facts/

[mandy]

A related article:

Two developments in the last day show why Skype can't make a profit. First, in an eBay earnings conference call, eBay execs clearly were trying to hide Skype's real performance. And then today, the Gizmo Project announced that all VoIP calls to landlines throughout most of the world will be free -- forever.

The fact that eBay was so stingy with real information on the call is no accident. If Skype was going like gangbusters, you can be sure they'd tout it...

full article: http://www.networkingpipeline.com/blog/a..._cant.html