Skype silences Alpha-blogger

Quoting Phil : " Wow. Talk about a chilling effect.

Skype lawyer Seema Sharma emailed blogger Jan Geirnaert Friday afternoon. She told him his popular skype-watch.com and skype-gadgets.com blogs put him in legal jeopardy. Jan, an independent IT consultant, took the implied threats seriously. He promptly blacked out skype-watch, abandoning two years of intense daily news coverage, product reviews, and wry commentary.

Jan said "I'm not a sadomasochist. Neither am I an idiot. By doing this, Skype sent me the signal not do any of this blogging wise, business wise, in any way."

He's taking his blogging "underground" to VoIP-watch.com. Pretty sure his tone will change. "Maybe they're getting too 'corporate' to tolerate any criticism" he said.

My take: Sharma, co-author of this tutorial on how to threaten people for profit, didn't consult with Skype's PR or marketing communications team before composing her email. If Sharma had, Sharma might have learned Jan's been:

• working on distribution and marketing for dozens of major Skype-affiliated companies, nurturing Skype's ecosystem.
• briefing business and government technology executives on Skype's effect on management, IT, telecom and economic policy.
• covering Skype-related news and issues at international conferences in Europe and Asia, creating unique editorial content.
• contributing to Skype Journal.
• advocating Skype passionately, online and off.

No more.

Skype didn't talk to Geirnaert like a human being, picking up the phone (or Skype) and talking with him, appreciating his business and marketing value in the blogosphere and and his past and ongoing contributions to Skype's ecosystem.

Instead, they brought in heavy guns.

In a few short emails, Skype's blown goodwill and a hard-won media asset.

I'm writing this Friday night, so it's unlikely Skype will respond to this incident until Monday, if at all."

Source : http://www.skypejournal.com/blog/2007/04/skype_silences_alphablogger.html