Redefining "word of blog"...

Amazing. I was browsing my bloglines' feeds last night,  and found a post by the very respected Jean-Michel Billaut on advanced talks between Yahoo! and Skype. I thought it was interesting enough to post about it.
That was about midnight last night. It's now approx. 16 hours later in Paris.

My post has been relayed by Om Malik, relayed on engadget, relayed on the SkypeJournal. Waow! this is not word of mouth anymore, but word of blog! And a piece of news has moved from my micro-audience blog (300-500 visitors / day) to giga-audience blogs on the web.

Just talked to Jean-Michel: I can't say anything more, but his sources seem very trustworthy. Whatever the outcome of this rumour, both parties should read the comments on engadget's post for instance. A great way to do a micro-focus group of what customers are thinking about this deal.

ps: a pix of me and Jean-Michel recently.

Update: Gizmodo is now also carrying the story among an important number of blogs... My previous post on Skype's valuation had generated lots of buzz ...

Update2 on 11/6/05: just spotted the story also on Robert Scoble's blog... he's attending Reboot and asked the question to a Skype person. "Not yet" was the answer... Pierre Chappaz, the former CEO of Kelkoo, sold to Yahoo:! left a comment. He doesn't deny the story, but confirms that the price of Skype must be sly-high.

Update3: it seems this is steering an unbelievable amount of posts (track it with technorati). My guess is that too much rumor doesn't help, and that if a deal is under way between Yahoo! and Skype, then it should be announced soon. Or denied. The silent way is a final option but would leave everyone frustrated. It is already generating strong stands, for instance here on Ross' blog.

On my side, EOT.