3-4 million for a web-based IM utility?

can i safely say bubble?

Yah, explain to me how a web-based IM client with 250k users is valued at 9 million (these aren’t acquired users either, they are users of other IM clients who happen to use Meebo at certain times).

I think the Meebo guys (and gals) have done a great job, but this certainly does feel like a bubble again.

This reflects what’s already been reported - VCs have a cash bubble. Many startups are actually turning away VC money to avoid having strangers on their board. Some startups are doing debt financing to avoid the VC money also.

I don’t know if Web 2.0 is about getting funded anymore but providing a sub-service to sell to the bigger players.

Wow - that’s nuts. How does Meebo make money or intend to make money?

Exactly. the funny thing about all of this is that their audience isn’t really theirs. They are simply aggregating customers who are loyal to other services. Users find Meebo interesting simply because it’s new, different, and fun for a change. As we know fads always fade.

Do they have any revenues? Clients?

Business model?

well, 3-4 mm for a web-based chat service is an interesting investment indeed .. but what is probably more interesting is where Meebo thinks they can take their technology. That’s the key here, its what’s below the waterline that Sequoia is probably interested in …

–sunjay

How does Meebo make money or intend to make money?

My thoughs:

* Advertising - which may do ok.
* Premium edition - the Trillian market, it will have users but not $9M worth of users.

Then again, we don’t get to see the business plan, do we.

Somehow this remindes me of the “Vijay, the world’s most desparate venture capitalis”, currently running on Scott Adam’s Dilbert cartoons (e.g. http://www.dilbert.com/comics/.....51216.html)

can I be the contrarian here and say that Meebo is really cool and something that I actually use from time to time? i could see it really catching on. remember, the big problem with IM networks is that they aren’t connected. Meebo could easily do a meta IM feature where you log in, and all of your accounts are working. so then users have a huge incentive to log into Meebo so they can see their friends on all of the networks at once. sure use power users know there’s very useful client software out there that does the same thing, but reality is most people do not. and almost _everyone_ has friends on at least two of the IM networks.

We had the pleasure of doing a podcast with Elaine, Sandy and Seth 2 months ago. You can check it out here: http://www.minorityrapport.com.....ebdes.html

Thanks,

Doug Sherrets

I don’t see anything great here. This kind of service is provided earlier also and just using ajax doesn’t make it that special.Trillian is another service similar to this, i used that one also reliable. There must be something stored for future I guess that will be different for web, otherwise i don’t see any reason VC’s giving that much money.

Meebo has the potential to extend further than just IM. And I think their business plan is based on that, because like many of the ppl have commented that an IM agregator is not worth ~ 10m, and definitely not 1775 lines of javascript and a server-side cgi wrapper over libgaim. Try using meebo and you can see that the IM is only taking 20% of the entire “Meebo dashboard”. Think about what other content/widget that can possibly populate the 80% blank dashboard space and thats where the other 8m usd is for.

Testing comment

if any 1 nows the password 2 get on to meebo then plz tell me luv booziebarbie10@hotmail.co.uk

Hiya the whole msn thingy has been banded from our skool we ave tryed loads a ways im.com, meebo.com, e-messanger ect. do ne1 else know ne otha ways of gettin on 2 msn plzzzz wb lv XhannahX xx

Meebo may seem like a toy, but it really is a help to companies that have very sensitive networks.
When a health care data company, insurance group or other HIPPA compliant company shuts off any opportunity for data to be transmitted insecurely, meebo is a great answer.

The IM can still manage quick questions within the company structure, without the needed security issues being compromised. I will be using meebo for a long time, during regular business hours. I would say, that these guys are on to something that the rest of you might be overlooking.

No one thought google was going to do anything big when these guys started. They were just another search engine. Hmmmm…

I think it is important to recognize that IM clients are a commodity. While I don’t see the business plan here, Meebo does have an opportunity to repurpose some borrowed technology. If a sizeable audience is interested then Meebo has a chance - their IP is their brand and with the right brand a company can take many directions.

ICQ did not have a business model but they have been sold for $400M

IMHO, Meebo is really doing well and deserves $10M valuation. Messaging is a very important domain and they started to dominate it with an innovative (but not unique) approach.

They’ve got a good team, and seth is prob real good at raising capital…

like khang said, its the POTENTIAL to do a lot more stuff.

Valuation at 9m. Yes. Ok. the IM part of it was probably worth like $500k.

But the “Ok we got 500k loyal users logging in to our servers daily. We have captured their attention, and they have our browser window permanently on display. Now we’re gonna do some nifty web2.0/social stuff with all these users.” —> This is worth $8.5m.

howdy hooo!!!!!!!! wots a web based messanger? all ours r blocked

I just wrote a little post on how I think Meebo could be a Myspace-killer:
http://videoontheweb.wordpress.....l-myspace/