Have to say I was intrigued by Andy Abramson's post on Skype raising money from Hutchison Whampoa, which is controlled by Li Ka-shing, the world's 19th richest man. The potential investment for a 5% stake was raised by Les Echos. According to the French newspaper, this would give Skype a valuation of EUR1 billion, or US$1.25-billion. Dow Jones subsequently reported sale of the 5% stake could lead to Skype attracting a strategic investor or doing an IPO. It quoted Mark Tluszcz, president with Mangrove Capital Partners, as saying this could give Skype a potential valuation of several billion Euros. Before everyone gets too excited, it should be pointed out that Mangrove is an investor in Skype along with Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Index Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners. I would bet, however, Tluszcz's quote will be picked up by other media outlets and before you know it, Skype will have a "potential valuation of several billion Euros".

I'm a little confused about the launch of Technorati's new blog finder because I was under the impression Technorati was already a blog search engine. Apparently, the beta blog finder is different because it lets people find blogs about a specific subject rather than just blog posts. Got that? Using Google-like methodology, the most highly-linked blogs appear first on a search list. If you conduct a search for "technology", for example, the usual suspects appear: Boing Boing, Engadget, Gizmodo, etc. In a sense, the blog finder addresses one of Technorati's weaknesses - the delivery of quantity rather than quality. It can be rather frustrating to do a search and then have to sift through dozens of results to find a good blog. Then again, you can stumble upon some excellent blogs that you have otherwise never have read. Tech Crunch describes the blog tool as an "interesting experiment". I guess you have to give Technorati points for trying something new even it doesn't exactly hit the mark. As one of the pioneers in blog search, it has been subject to plenty of criticism - some of it well deserved - from folks such as Jason Kottke, who has bid farewell to Technorati, and Zoli Erdos, who suggests Technorati is an idea company that can't execute. The key for Technorati is to keep moving ahead and experiment with new services. If they work, great; if not, try something else. Technorati CEO Dave Sifry posted a progress report earlier this week. Looks like the big problem has been handling growth and addressing some key technology issues such as keyword search. One last thought before I sign off: how long before Google launches a blog search tool?
Addendum: Josh Hallet has some interesting thoughts about Technorati Blog, pointing out some of the bugs/issues that need to be addressed.