eBay Removes Skype Brand Name From Buttons

11:59 pm on October 11, 2005 | Category: Business, VoIP

It appears that eBay has been making some questionable decisions regarding the future of the Skype internet telephony service, which they purchased last month for over $2 billion.

They have introduced a new generation of shortcut buttons, which can be placed on websites as an easy method of contacting the webmaster via Skype. One of the main benefits of the buttons was their message, which used to read “Skype Me”. The new buttons, however, make use of the much more general label: “Call Me”.

This may well be a sign that eBay is getting overconfident about the Skype brand name’s ability to sustain itself. They have essentially given up the opportunity to place the brand on thousands of websites across the internet.

In the long term, this could significantly devalue the value and potential of the Skype brand, and open the doors to increased industry competition.

Links: , , , , , , .

Related Articles:

    None Found

    1 Comment »

    RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

    1. I agree with your conclusion, but it still amazes me how many people haven’t heard of Skype. I had assumed a good cross-section would have, but some of my most clued-up, computer-using friends don’t know of it. eBay has a choice: promote it more and educate the consumer about Skype’s advantages; or let it slide to a point where it might rebrand it as eBay Phone or something equally horrid. Either feels wrong: the Skype brand could be left to grow organically, but now it’s part of a conglomerate, eBay won’t have that patience as it recoups its $2 billion.

      Comment by Jack Yan — October 13, 2005 #

    Leave a comment

    XHTML: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>


    Published by TeleClick Enterprises
    Edited by Jeremy Maddock