There are growing signs of tension between some of the players behind the $2 billion deal to sell eBay’s (EBAY) Skype to a group of investors.

On Friday, Joost, the U.K. Internet video company, said that by shareholder vote it had removed Michelangelo Volpi from its board of directors and from his position as chairman of the company. Volpi, a former high-level Cisco (CSCO) executive, stepped down from Joost’s CEO position in July, and is now a general partner at investment firm Index Ventures. Joost in a statement said it was also “conducting an investigation into Mr. Volpi’s actions during his tenure as CEO and as Chairman.”

In his role at Index, Volpi helped organize the group of investors that’s buying Skype from eBay. Yet Volpi’s relationship with Joost could prove important to the Skype deal coming to a clean conclusion.

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As eBay Inc. (EBAY) looks to offload Skype, the executives who sold the Internet telecom firm to eBay have formed the hub of a European network of investors and executives that they hope will rival and even exceed the one in Silicon Valley.

The sale of Skype to eBay for an estimated $3.3 billion in 2005 became renowned as one of Europe’s great venture-capital successes, with more than half the sale price going to employees, according to estimates based on filings for the Securities and Exchange Commission and in Luxembourg. While those kinds of gains have been seen in Silicon Valley, they were practically unheard of in Europe, making Skype alumni stars among European tech entrepreneurs and giving them a cachet in the U.S. that few Europeans could match.

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Oprah Winfrey may already be the Queen of All Media, but lately she’s been gunning for another title: Queen of All Tech.

Thursday’s episode of the show (taped earlier this month) is entirely dedicated to Skype, eBay’s (EBAY) soon-to-be-spun-off Internet communications service.

On the show, titled “Where the Skype Are You?,” Winfrey conducts video chats–via Skype–with people in weird places. Those places include a Canadian town near the North Pole, and from a submarine. She also talks to somebody flying in a Virgin America plane that offers Wi-Fi service–although Virgin warns they don’t allow us normal people to use Skype and other voiceover IP services to make calls while in the air (so that folks don’t annoy other passengers with noisy calls).

Winfrey also interviews Skype president Josh Silverman in a not-so-weird place: Skype’s London office.

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In the past week, eBay Inc. (EBAY) chief executive John Donahoe has taken steps to divest two businesses, acquire another, and revamp his company’s core e-commerce website.

During a call with investors Thursday morning, Donahoe said he thinks an initial public offering for eBay’s Internet-phone unit Skype will best “maximize value,” but he would be open to an unsolicited offer from another company to buy it outright. And he said that an agreement to purchase leading South Korean e-commerce company Gmarket Inc. will help the company grow not only in that market, but also serve as a platform to expand in Asian markets such as Japan, which eBay exited in 2002.

In a subsequent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Donahoe discussed the reasons for the hectic activity–-even during a week while he’s been on vacation–-and the forces behind a transformation plan he expects to take three to four years.

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EBay (EBAY) this afternoon announced that it plans to spin off Skype via an initial public offering in the first half of 2010. The company said specific timing of the IPO will depend on market conditions. The announcement did not say whether eBay would maintain a stake in the company.

In a statement, eBay CEO John Donahoe said that Skype is “a great stand-alone business with strong fundamentals and accelerating momentum, but that it has “limited synergies with eBay and PayPal.” He adds that operating Skype as a stand-alone company “is the best path for maximizing its potential.”

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A quartet of private-equity firms have joined forces for a leveraged buyout of a global telecommunications firm with hundreds of millions of users.

And no, this isn’t a blog post from 2006.

A group including KKR, Warburg Pincus, Providence and Elevation Partners recently teamed up to back the founders of Skype in an attempt to buy back their free Internet calling service from eBay (EBAY), according to people familiar with the bid.

Founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis originally approached eBay about repurchasing Skype, which acquired the service for $2.6 billion in 2005. eBay encouraged them to make an offer, and the Scandinavian billionaires rounded up a group of private-equity firms to back them, the person familiar with the bid said.

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will take to Oprah Winfrey’s couch today. What to expect? Questions about the economy? Mark’s not-so-secret Twitter account? The latest redesign?

Here’s what we’re hearing: Oprah and three guests–Oprah’s best friend Gayle King, actress Ali Wentworth and actor Mark Consuelos–will interview Mark and show a demo of the show’s new page on Facebook. A celebrity Facebook addict might Skype in to talk up the service as well, although that’s still a little TBD.

Another thing likely to be on the agenda: those nitpicky Facebook etiquette questions and some user stories to back them up.

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When Google (GOOG) announced its integrated phone service called Google Voice Thursday, it said something very loudly.

Google is saying it wants to be the world’s communication hub, and hundreds of companies–ranging from mobile phone operators to Skype to Microsoft (MSFT) better be listening.

Google Voice is a free service that offers “one number for life,” so that one incoming call to that number gets forwarded to all your other numbers–work, mobile, home or hotel room. Users get free calls across the United States and international rates cheaper than Skype. Landlines, computers and cellphones can all access its services.

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The fundamental debate over eBay (EBAY) boils down to this: The stock certainly looks cheap–trading at around eight times Street estimates for 2009 earnings. But the core business still appears to many to be fundamentally broken.

At a meeting with analysts yesterday, eBay laid out an aggressive three-year forecast which places increasing importance on PayPal and anticipated little or no growth in the core Marketplaces business. A number of analysts view the projection skeptically, noting that the company didn’t provide details on the short-term outlook; they also say that the forecast is predicated on an economic recovery in 2010 that not everyone is convinced will develop. Several analysts noted that, at current valuation levels, the stock largely reflects the value of PayPal, Skype (which many think is available for sale at the right price) and the company’s cash position, and effectively puts zero value on the core business. But with a turnaround of that unit still unfolding, few see a need to jump into the stock now.

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Like many Americans today, the economy is currently using me as its punching bag. So, I’ve decided to take a hard look at my monthly expenses and lop off anything I think I can live without–a financial amputation before gangrene sets in, if you’ll permit the metaphor. First in the crosshairs is my landline; I’m wondering if I can completely replace it with the much heralded and much cheaper Internet-based phone service, Skype.

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Is Microsoft (MSFT) interested in taking a stake in eBay’s (EBAY) PayPal and Skype units?

Stifel Nicolaus analyst Scott Devitt asserts in a research note this morning that he has “thought it possible for Microsoft to attain an equity ownership interest in PayPal/Skype.” He notes that display ads for Microsoft’s program for providing cash back to consumers who make purchases through MSN have shown up on eBay, and that all of eBay’s fixed price items qualify for the program. He also notes that the cash-back program offers PayPal deposit of refunds.

Manwhile, Devitt this morning upped his rating on eBay to Buy from Hold; he maintains his $35 price target on the stock.

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It should come as no surprise: Incumbents are beginning to act like incumbents. But while the cable companies are the first ones to jump on the tiered-broadband bandwagon, they won’t be the last. Their argument for limiting bandwidth and data transfers based on price sounds like a good idea, especially as a way to get bargain hunters to buy. In the long run, however, tiered broadband is a terrible idea that will bring the innovation inspired by flat-rate broadband to a screeching halt.

Flat-rate broadband–however cheap or expensive (depending on your point of view) it might be–inspired the formation of Skype, YouTube, Facebook, Apple’s iTunes and MySpace, amongst others. It allowed us to freely experiment, to embrace both the applications and the ideas they represented, such as VoIP, online video, digital downloads and social networking.

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AT&T, in conjunction with some 10 to 15 incumbent telecom carriers–British Telecom, Deutsche Telekom and NTT among them–is plotting to launch a Skype competitor, according to a research report issued by ThinkEquity analyst Anton Wahlman. This is Wahlman’s theory for now, but his track record is full of theories that have eventually been proven right.

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The rumor mills are turning at a feverish pace. Various sources are predicting that Google (GOOG) is about to hook up with eBay’s (EBAY) Skype. And Google’s M&A appetite may not stop there. Shares of Expedia (EXPE) soared 10% yesterday, after an analyst with Susquehanna alluded to rumors that Big G was readying a bid for the travel portal. So bolt yourself to the floor, because a cash-rich Google may be coming for you next.

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