Skype’s pal PayPal

Skype, eBay, PayPal … biggies on the internet are consolidating power further. This week saw the VON technology conference held in Silicon Valley. At said trade show, Skype CEO Niklas Zennstrom announced that his firm is to be fully integrated with PayPal, though offered no timeframe for beta testing or general release. Statements issued by Skype execs, however, put a release date in late April. The combination seems a natural, as both companies are subsidiaries of eBay Inc., and reportedly PayPal is the most popular way to pay for long-distance Skype phone calls. “You can send money over Skype,” ran Zennstrom’s quote in many an outlet reporting the announcement. “This is basically connecting the Skype community over PayPal. All the user needs is a PayPal account.” The folks over at the TeleClick blog quote IDC research analyst Will Stofega: “The tie-up between Paypal and Skype could be the ‘first step toward voice-based trading on eBay,’ according to Stofega.”