Meebo Delivers New Real-Time Features to Help Partners Increase Engagement and Audience

Business Wire, June 09, 2009

New Features Let Users Connect and Share Across Multiple Instant Messaging (IM), Social Networking, and Micro-Blogging Services

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Meebo, the company that enables real-time social interactions, today announced a major product update to its social communications technology. With the addition of multi-network IM access, users can now interact across all of the social graphs that matter individually to them, bringing their friends from major social networks, gaming sites, and IM buddy lists directly into Meebo’s partner sites. Users can further engage with this expanded network by seamlessly sharing content via a new and intuitive sharing interface. Content sites interested in increasing the volume of content sharing, but without their own social graph, can use the multi-network IM feature to expand their reach and drive social interactions. The result is increased engagement and audience for Meebo’s partners.

Last October, Meebo released a version of its social communication technology for seamless integration into third-party websites. Since then, 32 partners have deployed Meebo on their sites, and over 75 leading publishers have signed up in total. In May, 15.3 million unique users accessed Meebo’s syndicated service via partner sites, and combined with Meebo.com and Meebo Rooms, Meebo now has an overall monthly reach of 50 million people.

“Meebo connects users with all of their friends across any social graph that matters to them, which makes real-time sharing and having conversations about content from the Web an intuitive and accessible experience,” said Seth Sternberg, co-founder and CEO, Meebo. “Users on Meebo share 75 million links every month. Partners will benefit from increased social engagement and we expect them to see faster growth through sharing features that let users instantly send links to any of their friends.”

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CafeMom, the premier online destination for moms, and SparkPeople, a leading health and weight-loss website, deployed the new Meebo features today to millions. Existing Meebo partners have already begun upgrading, and future Meebo partners will launch with the new feature set shortly. CafeMom users, for example can now bring their friends from Facebook and Myspace, as well as friends from AIM, Gmail, and other IM services, directly into their friends list on CafeMom. With integrated multi-network IM, Meebo now offers a comprehensive social solution for users to share links, and for partners to increase user acquisition. Beginning today, users can send links (1) as posts directly to Facebook and Twitter, (2) as emails via a simple form, (3) over IM to Meebo partner sites (e.g. SparkPeople, IGN, or myYearbook) and (4) over IM to online friends on Facebook, Myspace, AIM, Gmail, etc.

The unmatched user reach offered via Meebo is augmented by a bold and innovative new interface for link sharing. On the left side of the Meebo Bar is a button that prompts the user to “Share Page.” When a user clicks, the friend list opens from the Meebo Bar at right and oversized share buttons lower from the header of the site. Click on a friend to share the page’s link (URL) over IM privately, or click on one of the oversized buttons on top to post it to your Facebook or Twitter feed or to send it as an email to anyone. The shared link points back to the Meebo partner site from which it originated.

“Meebo’s new sharing interface is intuitive and aggressively promoted, simple, elegant, and now very core to the user experience on CafeMom,” said Paul Bannister, EVP, CafeMom. “Due to the ease of deployment, plus expected increases in engagement and user acquisition, we’re hopeful that adding these real-time communication features has a material impact on our user growth. They’ve made this so easy to deploy that building our own solution was never an option.”

Currently, over 75 leading publishers have signed up to use Meebo for their sites. Partners are leveraging Meebo’s functionality to provide a safe, private, and brand-friendly approach to real-time social interaction. New partnerships announced today include Aeria Games, BakeSpace, Chictini, Fragegg, GamerNook, JamLegend, PlayedOnline, and SparkPeople. Additional signed partners include AddictingGames, AreYouInterested.com, BasilMarket, Bleacher Report, CafeMom, CrispyGamer, Current TV, DailyStrength.org, dotblu, eBaum's World, FanPop, Flixster, GGL Global Gaming, ibeatyou, IGN.com, ImageChef, Internet Brands, JacketFlap, myYearbook, OperationSports, OutSpark, Paste Magazine, PerfSpot, Piczo, PlayFire, Sonico, StarPulse, Sugar Publishing, Webs.com, WhateverLife, Yonja, and dozens more.