Luca Filigheddu blogs Eric Eldon's VentureBeat story that confirms BT, the British telecom giant, is in talks to buy Ribbit, one of the best talk 2.0 services on Earth. Ribbit spokespeople can't confirm or deny. Parsing...

Ribbit gives programmers free tools to build their own Skypes. Behind the user interface toolkit is a communications platform. Ribbit handles all the messy plumbing of connecting people to each other over many different types of networks, including Skype and PSTN, for a small fee. You can build a flash IM/voice/video client in a few hours (or less) using existing widgets.

Ribbit is the best platform available to talk-enable the web. There are thousands of user interfaces needed, and only a web services software platform lets designers and programmers tailor talk tools to their contexts. 

For example, their Salesforce application enables mobile calls and voice memos within Salesforce web applications. Without anyone having to join a network, download a 20MB software client, or configure anything. Contrast that with Skype for Salesforce which, while better integrated into Salesforce's CTI framework, requires callers to use Skype, and call center operators to have SkypeOut accounts.

Google bought similar plumbing, if not a platform, when it picked up GrandCentral this time last year.

BT is getting a Silicon Valley presence; a large, growing, excited developer program; and a bizdev engine that can drive Internet alliances.

Skype could have entered this space (and Skype Journal begged for this). Between legacy software architecture and Meg Whitman's golden handcuffs, Skype's execs never brought a web service infrastructure to market. Is it too late for Skype to bid for the company? $55 million seems to be the market price. 

Here's video of Ribbit's Crick Waters speaking earlier this year at the Emerging Communications Conference. And his slides:

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