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Filed under: News, VoIP

eBay to spin off Skype with IPO in 2010

eBay Skype
It looks like Skype will become its own company again next year. But eBay isn't looking to sell Skype back to founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, despite recent reports that they were hoping to buy the company again. Instead, eBay put out a press release today announcing that it would separate Skype from eBay and sell it through an IPO (initial public offering) in the first half of 2010.

In the release, eBay CEO John Donahoe admits something that most of us have known since eBay first purchsed Skype for around $3 billion: "Skyper has limited synergies with eBay and PayPal." By separating Skype from eBay and running it as its own publicly traded company, Skype can do what's best for a VoIP company and not have to worry about being attached to an online auction house.

Skype generated $551 million in revenue in 2008, and had 405 million registered users.

[via Techmeme]

Filed under: Business, Developer, Google

The fight for programming talent, Google vs VMware

The fight for programming talent, Google vs VMwareVMware has their sights set on programmers. This comes in the midst of VMware's IPO last week, and has upped the anti to make sure they get the best possible computer programming talent around.

After VMware's first day of trading their shares jumped 76%, making it the biggest IPO since Google. Now with Google being the top company that programmers are hunting due to their compensations and lifestyle, VMware has stepped in and flashed the green. Reports are that the company is paying out between $130,000 and $160,000 plus stock options and compensations. With Google being the only company on the block that can even come close to these salaries and benefits, there is war about to start in Silicon Valley.

VMware, a virtualization solution company, realizes how Google made it to where they are today, with smart people. And the only way to lure top talent is to offer them competitive compensations.

DLS asks, Who would you choose to work for?

Filed under: Business, Design, Developer, Internet, Web services, Social Software

How many page views a month does a Web 2.0 company need to get an IPO?

silicon valley guy handbookWe are in a crazy time right now as far as internet companies go. Just like 1999, they are popping up everywhere, and everyone is doing something 2.0 related. Only difference now, they are all online based applications.

Well, what would it take for a Web 2.0 company to hold an initial public offering? Michael Kanellos looked into this with Opus Capital partner Ken Elefant. Ken stated that his firm will not even think about investing in a 2.0 company unless they have one billion or more page views.

So what's the math here? A web 2.0 company needs to pull in at least $5 million/ month to be independent. Ultimately what Ken says is that in order for companies to be viable, their best bet is to get bought out by an established player. For more on Michael's findings check out Cnet.

[image via TechStartups]

Filed under: Internet, Photo, Utilities, Web services

Shutterfly's IPO

Shutterfly$87 million is the number Shutterfly raised in their IPO last week. Apparently they are doing something right. Several friends of mine swear by the online photo service for its many features and ability to print so many products from your photos. I personally love Flickr, and don't have much need for printing my photos on stuff, so I haven't used Shutterfly for that reason. Apparently many people love it, since they are valued at a much higher than Flickr's estimated $35 million. The service is decidedly more consumer-friendly, and not so much catered to the power-user.

[Via TechCrunch]

Filed under: Video, Web services

YouTube IPO in the works?

YouTube IPO?Fellow AOL blogger Tom Taulli at Blogging Stocks speculates that YouTube may be preparing for an IPO. The evidence? 1) YouTube's investor is Sequoia Capital, which was also an early investor in Google and "is not about making a great returns on its investments; rather, it wants to make blow-out returns." 2) YouTube just hired Gideo Yu, former Yahoo! treasurer, to be its CFO. Despite YouTube's youth--it was founded just 19 months ago--Taulli says a YouTube IPO would be "easy" considering its 40% market share and 100 million videos viewed each day.

Filed under: Google, Googleholic

Googleholic for August 18th, 2006

googleholicIn this issue of Googleholic we cover:
  • Google Map Search gadget
  • Grannies and Google Coupons
  • Google Music Trends
  • Brazil sues Google
  • Google Anniversary
  • Writely is open for business
  • China.com teams with Google
Welcome to Friday's Googleholic edition...

Read more →

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The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

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