So who's buying eBay?
Forget Sun + Apple. The next big deal will be eBay's inevitable merger with one of the two search giants. The net commerce company is already in bed with both Yahoo and Google.
Everyone knows that Yahoo and eBay have geared up for a merger. The combined company (YahBay, eHoo, or Boo.com) could really battle Google on most fronts. Of course, neither Yahoo nor eBay can beat Google's search engine, but Yahoo's okay with being #2. Yahoo could wrap ads around that money-sucker Skype, and eBay could integrate with all of Yahoo's other shopper-friendly content.
On the other hand, why can't Google buy eBay? That'd give them an instant user base for VoIP, online payments (Contextual ads + PayPal = major commissions), and net commerce. Both of those gains would shut up the critics who predict that Google's ad-based revenue stream will dry up with clickfraud.
