Google had a good day on Friday. As Americans were digesting their Thanksgiving turkey, Google's market cap rose a little over 2 percent, equal to about a $4 billion gain for the day. Wouldn't we all like to make that sort of money while on holiday? But $4 billion also happens to be about what the internet phone service Skype is worth--and while the U.S.A. relaxed, over in London, the rumor mill was in full swing about a possible Google buy out of Skype.
It all started as nothing but the flimsiest of rumors, albeit from a writer cum blogger for the Guardian newspaper in London, Jemima Kiss. Her exact words: "Currently in favor around London's webbist community is the rumor that Google has been in negotiations to buy Skype, the web telephony firm, from eBay."
Newspapers around the world have struggled with how to deal with bloggers. At first most respected papers avoided blogs fearing they lacked the normal journalistic checks, which readers associated with their brands. But as the blog phenomena took off most relented and now blogs are to be seen on news sites around the world. But the tension over their journalistic integrity still exists.
Kiss was previously a contributor to the respected industry site, paidcontent and before that at journalism.co.uk, so has a solid pedigree. But if such a paragraph had been submitted to the printed edition it would not have made it past the first copy editor. That is not to say it is wrong. But to get printed there would have had to have been some real sourcing, not to mention checking with the parties involved.
But on the internet, anything goes, and so it was by Sunday evening 256 different web publications had referenced the Kiss rumor, with only one, Gigaom [1], actually checking with Skype or Google as to its veracity. Skype humorously said they did not comment on rumors. Most of the commentary suggested it was a good fit and consistent with Google's ambitions to remake the telephony world into an open ecosystem where carriers are just that. Significantly none of the major business publications followed the story up.
As for Kiss she had moved on to her latest rumor: News Corp to buy the social network site for bizoids, Linkedin.
More Reports:
- Where the rumor started: Guardian Blog [2]
- Skype requirement [3] to pay out $200 million if sold before April 2008
- Why sell Skype Skype Journal Report [4]
Related articles:
- Technology cold war Report [5]
- Google talks, world shudders Report [6]
Links:
[1] http://gigaom.com/2007/11/19/rumor-skype4sale-google-a-buyer/
[2] http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/digitalcontent/2007/11/rumoursville_google_sniffing_r.html
[3] http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1065088/000089161807000579/f34172e8vk.htm#000
[4] http://skypejournal.com/blog/2007/11/why_sell_skype.html
[5] http://www.fiercevoip.com/story/technology-cold-war/2007-11-19
[6] http://www.fiercevoip.com/story/google-talks-world-shudders/2007-11-01