Meebo: More Features, Continued Growth
Nik Cubrilovic
43 comments »
Since launching last year, Meebo the web-based instant messaging application has had phenomenal growth and great user adoption. This week they have announced a new set of features and upgrades to their application, the first since they announced their funding from Sequoia capital.
The best of the new features are that you can now create an account with Meebo and have access to all your instant messaging accounts with a single sign-on. The problem I have had to date with Meebo is that I do have a number of different accounts on different networks but the single sign-on and having a Meebo account solves that. They have added some cool features to it such as being able to sign in with a default status of invisible, see all your contacts across all networks in a single list, and having as many accounts as you wish. Single sign-off is coming shortly I am told.
I was at a dinner with Meebo co-founder Seth Sternberg during the week and he talked about these new features, the continuing growth as well as Meebo’s plans for the future. These guys are working on some exciting things and are now handling their large load of users well with more servers. Their growth is still extremely strong: they hit a new record of 396,000 connections in a day last week.
I am using Meebo as my full-time instant messaging client from today – and it is working well so far. Many of the incremental improvements have made the experience enjoyable for the user. It will be interesting to see how the competition responds to what Meebo are doing and if they will be able to sustain this growth over the next few months and beyond.
Meebo is an example of a peculiar maketing problem.
1. If they dont become popular, they are dead.
2. If they become popular, they are dead as well - all firewalls will start blocking the site.
The noproxy guys fall under the same category. think - anonymizer, safesurf, noproxy etc.
Does anyone know if there is a term to describe this?
Nice post Nik. Meebo seems like a hip and down to earth company. I dig the ‘about’ page off of the Meebo homepage…biz guy, ajax girl, etc…good stuff!
I’m still curious how they plan to turn this into an actual business, and how they plan to deal with the non-existent barrier to entry in their space. I wish them the best of luck!
I’m with Matt - I love the service and use it very frequently (in fact, it saved my bacon recently when I was at the data center…) but I’d really like to know where the profitability comes in!
I also wish ‘em all the best, it is truly great stuff.
Nice first post Nik. I’ve discovered that it’s even better when I read it to myself with an Australian accent.
Throw another shrimp on the barbie mate!!!
funny tyler. . ok ok ill get into it
“these jaguars are right nasty!”
someone find that video, I crack up thinking about it.
Srinivasan it’s called having dependancies. All businesses should look closely at who they are dependant on for survival and what they can do to either remove those dependancies or minimise any risk arising from them. It’s the T in a SWOT
Don’t count Meebo out just because it is popular. I had the good opportunity to sit down with Seth last week, and I am behind his current business plan. The technical ways in which Meebo is handling IM also places its use in a position of adoption within the enterprise, or other institution. IM protocols require unusual support within an enterprise, and by moving it to http many of these inherent problems go away.
You are right. My company’s proxy is blocking MeeBo now. Anyway, I still support MeeBo.
They have an interesting approach to recruiting people. They are hiring if you know where to look!
– Matt Smith –
MyHomePoint - Powering the Modern Family
SwoofWare - It’s only work if somebody makes you do it
Nice first post Nik. Meebo is a nice app. Personally don’t use it much as I find that Adium serves my needs well.
I wish them the best but like a few others do not understand their business model. Any insights that you can share?
Lance, the user count is large and growing at Meebo, 350k logins a day, and over 20k concurrent users. That is a large enough market to tap into, and it is growing at a good pace. Think that through and you will have your business model.
Can someone explain to me how Meebo is different to E-messenger.net?
Thnx.
Matt - the barrier to entry isn’t trivial by any means. Interoperating with the major IM services (since they update their connection protocols often and like to lock-out 3rd parties) is a major pain, so these guys deserve all the credit they’re given.
Meebo is implemented on the Gaim protocol. Anyone can make their own meebo website in 1 week.
The main problem with Meebo’s business model is that they are highly vulnerable to being closed off by the big networks at ANY time.
Yea my school also blocked meebo…do you guys know how to still get on it? it would really save me from some of my tourturing classes
Try http://www.e-messenger.us or
http://www.meebo.us or
http://www.meebo.biz
They all point to Meebo site..
hey, i’ve tried pretty much every single alternate address but the school filter still won’t let me in to meebo. are there any addresses i can use? i’ve used the www2.meebo.com (etc), 294.329.2820 (etc), meebo.us, meebo.biz etc.
tried them all and none of them work. my school is fucked up!
“Can someone explain to me how Meebo is different to E-messenger.net?”
To start, no advertisments (yet)…
If nothing works try this:
http://www.scipo.com
http://www.scipo.net
http://www.scipo.us
http://www.scipo.co.uk
http://www.scipo.org
http://www.scipo.info
They all go to meebo .
http://solutionwatch.com/225/m.....mment-6585
Lots of people ask my oppinion about who is the best in instant messaging.
Here’s my 2 cents:
1. http://www.meebo.com ( alternatives- http://www.meebo.us” or http://www.meebo.biz )
2. http://www.imunitive.com (alternatives- http://www.imunitive.co.uk )
3. http://www.imhaha.com - supports QQ as a bonus-( alternatives- http://www.imhaha.net)
4. http://www.e-buddy.com (alternatives -http://www.e-buddy.us)
5. http://www.koolim.com (strong newcomer) -(alternatives-http://www.koolim.us)
6. http://www.goowy.com - ( alternatives-http://www.goowy.us , http://www.goowy.info , http://www.goowy.biz)
7. http://www.mabber.com ( alternatives-http://www.mabber.us )
8. http://www.wablet.com ( really strong competitor for the first places-still in Alpha- ) - ( alternatives- http://www.wablet.us )
Chatango.com is another service to add chat to your home page.
ola
still i cant use the meebo i tried all da sides but still ghhhrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
“still i cant use the meebo i tried all da sides but still ghhhrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr”
Try this then….
http://www.ebuddy.com
Works fine for me
chat
I cant access Meebo from work.. they keep blocking all the ip addresses. Can anyone help?