
Skype Founders Seek to Buy Service Back From EBay  - peter123
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/11/technology/companies/11skype.html
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peter123
anybody remember webshots.com? They sold the company twice, coz they bought it
back from excite when it went under.

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dcurtis
Actually they sold it three times.

First to Excite@Home, then CNET, then American Greetings.

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ShabbyDoo
It was sold three times. AG bought it from CNET -- the founders had nothing to
do with that.

Founders buying back companies for pennies on the dollar is surprisingly
common. There's a 300-ish person consultancy in Cleveland with such a history
. The founder cashed out twice.

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rokhayakebe
Skype is a company that should go public.

Imagine Skype integrating a money transfer layer into its application.

I would also think it is one of the biggest social network platform that has
yet to be milked.

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tjmc
Agreed. Personally, I'm surprised that no electronics manufacturer has built
wifi and Skype into a video camera yet.

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avner
Its got mostly to do with their closed platform. However, recently they have
started opening up things (i.e. their codecs). Skype has established a
phenomenal brand image that is under-utilized right now because its still
chained to the computer. Nonetheless, Developments like the iphone app are a
breath of fresh air and shows their strategy of truly mobilizing the app.

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riffic
Agree, they should tear down the walled garden, and implement a new version of
skype interoperable with something such as xmpp/jingle.

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zandorg
I guess they said "Holy cow, we started a phone company with zero overheads
and sold it for less than Verizon!"

