Jeff Calls Us The Skype Paparazzi

If Skype Paparazzi is who we are, I'm honored to be lumped in with two of the best pure journalists I know. Mark Evans, and Om Malik.

These two are real reporters. They report and talk to sources everyday. I just call it as I see it, rely on instinct, 32 years of work experience and some lessons learned from my mentors now sadly not with us any longer.

Our coverage of Skype largely has been brought on by the eBay influence. Skype since it's inception had been very blogger and early adoptive media friendly. As a private company they could do a lot without having the SEC look over the shoulder. Now as part of eBay, a company that has never been what I would call media savvy, just big news driven, has begun to change the way things are done.

That's started with PR. They've hired a firm with some credentials of past successes, but in the PR world you're only as good as last clip, story or blog post. The total void of rapport with the bloggers, a leadership team now split between Silicon Valley, Tallin, Estonia and London means 8 and 10 hours of difference.

Hears another issue, just around the time eBay bought Skype, the startup named a very savvy brand building executive in Saul Klein Chief Marketing Officer. Recently I read he's VP of Marketing.

Something's not adding up in SkypeVille.

Clickity Clack has some more thoughts as does Mike at Utopiaoverip.