Meebo

Meebo

 

Meebo Logo
Meebo's homepage as of December 2011.
Web address	meebo.com
Slogan	"Together is Better" (September 2007- November 2011) "More of What You Love" (November 2011-present)
Commercial?	Yes
Type of site	Social networking service
Registration	Optional
Available language(s)	Multilingual
Owner	Google Inc.
Created by	Sandy Jen Seth Sternberg Elaine Wherry
Launched	September 2005
Alexa rank	25,800 (April 2013)
Current status	Acquired by Google as a companion to Google+. All products have been discontinued except Meebo Bar which is generally seen as a nuisance on third party websites.

Meebo was an advertising-supported embedded social media platform. It began in 2005 as a browser based instant messaging program which supported multiple IM services, including Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, AIM, ICQ, MySpaceIM, Facebook Chat, Google Talk, CafeMom, Zorpia, and others.
Meebo was founded in September 2005 by Sandy Jen, Seth Sternberg and Elaine Wherry, and is based in Mountain View, California.
Meebo also developed a version of Meebo for use on the iPhone and a native application that runs on Android mobile phones.
In June 2012, Google Inc. acquired Meebo as a companion to Google+. Meebo's sole remaining product, the Meebo Bar, is generally seen as a nuisance on third party websites.

Timeline

Meebo received funding from Sequoia Capital on December 15, 2005. Meebo includes features such as invisible sign on (to prevent others from knowing when a user connects) and simultaneous connections to multiple IM services.Early angel investors in Meebo include Auren Hoffman and Marc Andreessen.
On August 2, 2006, Meebo launched the "meebo me" widget, which allows users to embed a version of Meebo on their personal website. Additionally, on October 11, 2006, they announced a partnership with Amie Street to include the "meebo me" widget on each Amie Street user page.
Meebo allows some people who are behind firewalled networks (networks that block the various instant messaging protocols but have not blocked the meebo.com domain name) to connect to instant messaging services due to the fact the user connects to only port 443 (HTTPS) and the Meebo service itself then connects to the various instant messaging protocols.

• As of 14 May 2007, Meebo incorporated "Meebo Rooms". Users of Meebo can connect to chat rooms or host their own for which multiple friends can join and chat. Meebo Rooms also grants a degree of control to the user with invite and ban authority. Classic Meebo was updated to reflect the release prior to Meebo Rooms to allow users with outdated browsers to continue to use meebo.

• On 10 September 2007, Meebo announced support for file transfers between users.

• In late 2007, Meebo was included as a web app with gOS, a Linux distribution.

• In April 2008, Meebo secured $25M in venture capital funding.

• In November 2008, Meebo launched Meebo for Android.

• In December 2008, Meebo added support for two new IM networks, Myspace IM and Facebook Chat.

• In December 2009, Meebo launched Meebo Bar, a gadget that let visitors use Meebo from the bottom of a webpage. It replaces Community IM.

• In February 2010, Meebo launched Meebo for iPhone and iPod Touch.

• In May 2010, the original Meebo Rooms service was discontinued as Meebo believed that it no longer fit their core mission of connecting users with their closest friends. The old public rooms remained online, but could only be accessed by users who added the room to their friends list before the service was discontinued. User responses to the change have been overwhelmingly negative, with many describing the rooms as places that allowed them to create meaningful friendships or as the primary reason that they used Meebo. Since the change, the service, which previously featured several active communities, has fallen into disuse. Users can still create private rooms which are password-protected, non-searchable, and require them to invite their friends.
• In September 2010, Meebo launched Meebo for BlackBerry.

• In December 2010, Meebo secured another $27.5M in venture capital funding. This brings their total funding amount to around $70M.

• In August 2011, Meebo announced that all rooms would cease to be available in October 2011. No explanation for the cancellation was given, and user response was overwhelmingly negative.

• In November 2011, Meebo announced it reached 250 million monthly global visitors.

• In November 2011, Meebo went through major changes including new features and a new logo.

• On June 4, 2012 Meebo announced through Meebo Blog that they "have entered into an agreement to be acquired by Google".

• On July 11, 2012, all of Meebo's products, except for the Meebo Bar, were discontinued. 

• On June 6, 2013, the Meebo Bar was discontinued.

Recognition

In 2009, Meebo received a Think Social Award from the ThinkSocial team.
In 2010, Meebo was recognized as one of 69 "Hottest Silicon Valley Companies" by Lead411.

Social integration

Meebo has been integrated into many Social Networking sites for IM features between users. The Meebo look will have changed and be replaced by the site's branding, but still uses Meebo's API's.

Bebo

Main article: Bebo#Bebo Chat

Bebo Chat, which allows users to chat to other users via Meebo's IM bar, was launched in 2011. Users can also update their 'Saying' and show their availability status, as well as have access to other links to Bebo's pages, and special offers. It also provides a link for users to visit Bebo's fan page on Facebook, where they can 'Like' their page and receive updates.