Open...and Shut In 2005, eBay bought Skype for $2.6 billion to bring voice communications to the online auction site, claiming the combination would "revolutionise the ease with which people can communicate through the internet." Four years later, eBay sold Skype for $2.75 billion because no one wanted to talk to the other party in a transaction.

Now that Microsoft has picked up Skype in an $8.5 billion deal, let's hope that it appreciates what eBay never did: Skype is more valuable as an identity tool than as a VOIP service. Identity is the Holy Grail for the Internet, which is why Google and Facebook desperately want users to be themselves, and not a pseudonym.

Google has been more upfront about this, perhaps because Facebook doesn't really have to coax users into using their real names. Facebook is where you hang out with high school friends and that person you met at a bar: fake identities just don't work very well for true social networking.