Bob Davis, one time Internet star and builder of Lycos, first saw the need to adding services and media to search engines. Barry Diller early on in the Internet era saw the wisdom to pile on services to his InterActiveCorp operations.

And now eBAY is playing this card too as it is apparently pursuing an acquisition of Skype. eBAY understands that its large growth must be fed and that it must add more services. Skype telephony services offered to eBAY's millions of users is a great concept ---whether it would work cannot be answered. One can also see how eBAY's PayPal services would tie in nicely with Skype.

News Corp. is late to the Internet game (I have mentioned many times how News Corp. missed out on being an Internet winner early on by dumping its Delphi community back in 1994). The Murdoch team recently bought myspace.com and now they are purchasing the online game network known as IGN. This means that News Corp. has paid somewhat over $1 billion for lots of Internet traffic, little revenue, and virtually no profit.

I have to question the News Corp. strategy. It smacks of the 1998-1999 concept of "Internet Traffic Mania." eBAY, on the other hand, is thinking outside of the box and into the future (a la Davis and Diller).

News Corp. is a great media company that does not get the Net. eBAY is a great Internet company that "gets the future."