Meebo
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Instant messaging, social networking |
| Founded | September 2005 |
| Founder | Sandy Jen, Seth Sternberg, Elaine Wherry |
| Fate | Acquired by Google |
| Headquarters | Mountain View, California , United States |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Products | Meebo Messenger, Meebo Rooms, Meebo Bar |
| Parent | Google (from 2012) |
Meebo (presented as meebo) was a service for instant messaging and social networking, established in September 2005 by founders Sandy Jen, Seth Sternberg, and Elaine Wherry. Based in Mountain View, California, the company started by providing a web-based instant messaging platform before broadening its scope to include online chat and social networking features. In June 2012, Google acquired Meebo to merge its workforce with the team developing Google+.
History
The initial backend of Meebo was constructed using libgaim version 1.5.0. After initial self-financing by its founders, the company secured $100,000 in angel funding from prominent investors such as Marc Andreessen and Auren Hoffman. This was followed by a $3.5 million investment from Sequoia Capital in 2005 and a $9 million round from Draper Fisher Jurvetson in 2006.
On August 2, 2006, Meebo unveiled the Flash-based "Meebo Me" chat widget designed for personal websites, allowing site owners to communicate live with visitors. By May 2007, it had launched media-enabled chat rooms called Rooms that could be embedded on any website; however, at that point, it had not developed a monetization strategy.
In April 2008, Meebo raised $25 million in venture capital from investors including Jafco Investment, Time Warner, and KTB Investment & Securities. Later that year, it introduced "Community IM," a widget aimed at community websites to incorporate Meebo’s services externally. This concept evolved into the "Meebo Bar" by December 2009, which offered enhanced chat capabilities for third-party websites.
Moving beyond browser-based instant messaging, Meebo added compatibility with Facebook Messenger in February 2009 and released mobile applications for major smartphone platforms such as Android, iOS, and BlackBerry. A fully native iPhone application became available in February 2010.
The original Meebo Rooms feature was phased out by October 2011. In February of the same year, Meebo acquired Mindset Media to improve its targeted advertising technology.
On June 4, 2012, Google publicly announced the acquisition of Meebo. By July 11, 2012, all Meebo products except for the Meebo Bar were shut down; the Bar itself was discontinued on June 6, 2013. Following the acquisition, Meebo’s personnel integrated into Google's Google+ development team.
Meebo also became popular as a means for users to access instant messaging services within restricted environments like schools and workplaces.
Messenger
The flagship offering from Meebo was Meebo Messenger, a web-based instant messaging client supporting various IM platforms such as Yahoo!, MSN, AIM, ICQ, MySpaceIM, Facebook Chat, and Google Talk. Its notable features included invisible sign-on capabilities, consolidated access to multiple accounts across different services, conversation history logging, file sharing options, and video conferencing. Windows users could utilize a standalone notifier application to receive alerts while maintaining their online status. Registered users had the convenience of saving their login details for automatic connection across services.
The messenger presented a unified contact list displaying protocol icons next to each account but did not support user avatars. It automatically handled contact requests and approvals without manual intervention. Social functionalities incorporated online gaming options, multi-user chats via Meebo Rooms, sharing information about currently played music tracks, and integration with social network messaging protocols—although it did not provide notifications about social network updates.
Rooms
Meebo Rooms functioned as an advertising-funded multi-user chat platform integrated within Meebo Messenger and affiliated websites. Partnerships with companies such as blip.tv, Capitol Music Group, CNET Networks, and NBC Universal facilitated the embedding of chat rooms directly on their sites, fostering user interaction centered around their content. Additionally, external social networks including Piczo, Revision3, RockYou, and Tagged incorporated Meebo Rooms into their offerings.
The platform accommodated up to 80 users simultaneously, with hosts granted control features like inviting participants and banning users. This capability not only boosted user involvement but also created extra advertising opportunities aligned with Meebo's revenue strategy.