It's all about speed to buy, 'click to call' now available on eBay via Google

Overlapping services and partnerships apparently are part of Silicon Valley's effort to respond to tech-saavy shoppers who want service in a hurry.

In May, eBay announced a deal with the No. 2 Internet search engine, Yahoo Inc., to serve all its domestic advertising. Under a new partnership, Google would become the exclusive provider of text advertising on eBay outside the United States.

eBay plans to rely on Google's international presence to build a worldwide market for Skype, the Internet phone provider the company acquired last year.

The companies said they would use Skype and Google Talk, the search engine's instant messaging and voice-over-Internet telephone service, to build a search function that lets Web surfers launch Internet phone calls to eBay merchants or Google advertisers by clicking on ads.

Promoting "click-to-call" advertising was also part of the deal eBay announced with Yahoo in May.

Once "click-to-call" is established the next opportunity could be "Click-to-play video ads" for AdWords which appears to have had a slow start?