ITGumbo: spicing IT up

TechCrunch is reporting that VoIP company, Jajah, which has its development center in Israel, has come under fire from eBay for "releasing website buttons that allowed eBay Inc. buyers and sellers to initiate phone calls earlier this week." While such a service enhances communication capabilities on the auction site, eBay claims that the buttons violates the company's policy regarding the inclusion of links in listings.

Additionally, though not outright mentioned, the inclusion of another VoIP service conflicts with eBay's current VoIP service that it owns and uses on the site, Skype. Although with eBay's backing, Skype has become poised to take VoIP to the next level of Internet communication, so far, eBay's and Skype's innovations have been less than revolutionary. The fact that eBay has utilized Skype for some product categories but not all of them leaving room for Jajah to interfere, is just one example of other companies trying to fill the voids on the site.

Whether or not the Jajah threat will stimulate new advances in Skype should be followed in the next few months. For now though, the invasion just leaves a question mark in eBay's ability to successfully integrate Web 2.0 features and gives more steam to Jajah.

Here is a video that Jajah posted on MySpaceTV in February explaining the different uses for the dynamic buttons:

JAJAH Dynamic Buttons for MySpace

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