eBay on Google: 'both a competitor and one of our best relationships'

eBay is moving aggressively to strengthen its core auctions business with new advertising, marketing and sales strategies and to broaden its reach both on the Internet with e-commerce players and offline with service providers via Skype, PayPal and its soon to be launched AdContext contextual ad network.

As reported by Newsweek:

the company will announce plans to integrate Skype into its U.S. marketplace for the first time. Sellers can choose to include Skype buttons in their auctions for a few carefully chosen product categories. Whitman says the real opportunity lies in the potential synergies between Skype, eBay and PayPal. For example, in the next few years, she says, Skype users will be able to send money via PayPal to their Skype buddies; all eBay auctions categories will have Skype buttons, ideally greasing sales, and Skype on eBay will attract service businesses such as dog walkers and plumbers, which rely on telephone calls to finalize deals.

Whitman says Google "is both a competitor and one of our best relationships" and notes that she speaks to CEO Eric Schmidt (a Princeton classmate) several times a month.

For more coverage see:

Google and eBay take each other on

First Look: eBay AdContext 'Get Contextual Keywords' ad network tool

eBay seeks 'social shopping' dollars with Web 2.0 forays

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