So what does the future hold for building sustainable, local merchant- and consumer-centric daily deal models?

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The tie-up will give PayPal access to nearly 7 million merchant locations with the potential of many more worldwide in the future.

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Being able to play in this value chain will be critical to raising operator revenues in the future and it's fantastic to have a high-profile merchant like Skype on board.

ENGADGET: Skype strikes deal with Mach to expand direct carrier billing for credit purchases