Skype Prime: What took so long?
Perusing through the Skype Garage this morning, I noticed that a new beta of Skype 3.1 has been released today. Hot on the heels of Skype Find, Skype Prime is the beginning of the long overdue Skype-eBay-PayPal integrations so many have been waiting for since eBay purchased the two companies. Skype Prime allows Skype users to charge for services offered through voice and video calls on Skype.
This idea isn't new, however, as Ether has been providing essentially the same service since last year. The big difference here, of course, is the integration with PayPal. Users' service fees are collected in their PayPal accounts where they can be transfered, spent or saved. The next logical step is for eBay to provide sellers with dedicated virtual stores from which services and/or goods can be provided. This seems to be the most logical implementation of the "power of three" integration. The question is, will people use this and will the average user be as apt to buy a conversation online as they are a good or product. I hate to toot my own horn, but I predicted this some time ago. It's nice to be right sometimes.
