Skype Offers Unlimited Long Distance Calling

Skype, the popular VoIP service for making free phone calls over the internet, IM chatting, and video calls has announced that it will now be offering unlimited calling to over a third of the world’s population. The company is offering a calling subscription with a single, monthly flat rate for international calling to landline numbers in 34 countries. That's probably why my Skype was on the blitz today...it was probably jammed with people using the service.

There're apparently no long term contracts, one flat monthly fee, no hidden costs, you can make calls 24/7, and it's available for calls to 34 countries. Subscriptions can be purchased at skype.com/go/subscriptions. Skype was originally launched in August 2003 and later acquired by eBay in Oct. 2005. There are currently about 309 million users on the freely downloadable Skype software.

Rumor: eBay to Sell Skype to Google?

Techcrunch reports on a rumor this morning that would have Google either buy Skype from eBay or Google partner with Skype. According to the site,

"Skype, acquired in late 2005 for $3.1 billion, has been a financial albatross around Ebay’s neck. eBay removed Skype co-founder and CEO Niklas Zennstrom in October 2007, reportedly due to frustration at the financial performance of Skype. Ebay also negotiated down the huge earnout due to Skype stockholders and took a $936 million one-time loss around the transaction. It’s clear that eBay wants to either unload Skype, or significantly drive performance. Google, by contrast, is just beginning to think about how to dominate the voice space. They have a VOIP service through GTalk, a free 411 service and GrandCentral, a telephone management service they acquired last year for $50 million."

What it means: I think this potential acquisition/partnership makes complete sense. IMHO, call tracking and pay-per-call represents a large portion of future local search revenues and Google clearly sees that local search is where they will get tremendous growth in the next 5-10 years. By buying the Skype infrastructure (and user base) and combining it with the GrandCentral technology and expertise, they instantly get core assets to execute that strategy globally.