Meebo’s homepage as of December 2011.
Google will retire the website widget service Meebo Bar just one year after buying the company that built it. Google bought Meebo on 4 June 2012 reportedly for $100m (£643k), before proceeding to strip away much of its functionality.
The advertising giant confirmed this in an early email this morning to all publishers saying it reason for scrapping the tool is to focus on its Google+ plugins.
It started as an instant-messaging service compatible with other web chat programs. It then evolved into the Meebo bar, which could be installed by webmasters along the tops of their sites and allowed visitors to easily share links with friends. It also slurped up data about people and used that to hit them with advertising.
Before Meebo’s demise, Google stripped away all its features until it only consisted of the Meebo bar with added Google+ capabilities.
It will be retired on 6 June, a few weeks before Google Reader is due to be scrapped, here is the email the advertising giant (Google) sent out this morning:
Dear Meebo Bar Publisher,
Five years ago, we launched the Meebo Bar to bring community, engagement, and revenue to publisher sites.
As part of the Google team, this continues to be our focus, but we want to best serve mobile and desktop publishers moving forward. Therefore, we have decided to focus our resources on initiatives like the recently launched Google+Sign-In (which includes interactive posts and over-the-air app installs) and the Google+ plug-ins.
This means we will retire the Meebo Bar, effective June 6, 2013.
Thank you for being a Meebo Bar publisher. We have truly appreciated the opportunity to serve you.
Sincerely,
Sandy, Seth, and the Meebo Team
Is it unclear what will happen to the “Sandy, Seth, and the Meebo Team”, who signed the statement, although it is possible they will be taken on by the advertising giant to create new features for It’s Google+ servicew.
Before Google bought Meebo, it was used by 100 million people a month, apparently.
Source: Email / https://www.meebo.com
Jordan Couzens is the man behind JordanTBH Technologies. He has a keen interest in Technology and Computer Programming.
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