Web based instant messaging provider Meebo has launched “Meebo Rooms, Partner Edition”, a more corporate friendly version of Meebo Rooms.
Meebo Rooms launched in May and allows users to chat while viewing media live with instant messaging contacts, both from meebo.com and from their own sites. Over 75,000 Meebo Rooms have been created to date. The new Partners Edition offers extra functionality, including brand customization and Flash skinning, automated capacity spillover, advertising tracking, traffic and data reporting and integration with each partners’ existing registration system.
The list of initial partners for Meebo Rooms Partner Edition is quite amazing. Launch partners include: inAmie Street, BuddyLube, Capitol Records, Columbia Records, Fearless Records, Flyer Records, Hollywood Records, Island Def Jam Music Group, iSound, Jive Records, MOG, Nettwerk Music Group, Radio One, Inc., RockYou, The Hype Machine, Universal Motown/Universal Republic, VH1, VIBE Magazine, Vice Magazine’s VBS.tv, and Virgin Records. Artists involved in the launch include A Fine Frenzy, Aly and Aj, Alpha Rev, HellYeah, Jason Fox, Jenny Owen Youngs, Kelly Rowland, Korn, Lil Mama, Matt Wertz, MIMS, Mudvayne, Portugal the Man, Saosin, Straylight Run, and T-Pain. The artist list is just the launch list, additional artists’ rooms will be built in the coming weeks.
The transformation of Meebo from a popular web based instant messaging company to platform provider has been nothing short of remarkable. Silicon Valley based Meebo has previously raised $12.5 million over two rounds of financing from Sequoia and Draper Fisher Jurvetson; today’s announcement would seem to demonstrate once again that they are getting strong results from their investment. Meebo Rooms Partner Edition will take a cool product from Meebo to an even broader audience.
Previous TechCrunch coverage here.
So now they have 75K rooms and no one in them.
Congratulations, I am sure their partners are excited.
Meebo’s just getting started!
Snore… the rooms feature is so over hyped. Meebo is a house of cards, ready to topple.
Who’s in the rooms?? Anybody using the site?
whats the price to do this type of partnership?
Hey guys,
A few new “Partner Edition” meebo rooms are up already.
Check out myspace.com/mimsfanclub, mog.com/chat and hypem.com/radio.
Can’t wait to hear feedback.
-Danny
Is Danny one of the people from Meebo? His name sounds familiar.
Nice work Meebo!
Believe you are on the right track
Nick
3eep.com
share your sports passion!
Duncan –
Comments like the ones in your last paragraph make me question the journalistic integrity of Techcrunch. You make outlandish claims like their transition has been “nothing short of remarkable” and that “Sequoia and DFJ are getting strong results from their investment in Meebo”. Yet nothing you say in your post substantiates that. How much are corporate partners paying for Meebo rooms? What % of Meebo Rooms are used primarily for picking up guys/girls? Has this service driven increased customer acquisition for Meebo? Your analysis is shallow and your descriptions are exaggerated. I really hope that I’m wrong about this, but it’s not clear to me what about this release/product would get anybody so excited. The music industry is doing deals with anybody and everybody. I would be concerned if Meebo wasn’t signing up these B-list artists after bringing in a high profile BD guy. Did Seth Sternberg or Roelof Botha call in a favor?
Take a look at the posting on http://www.venturebeat.com on Meebo Rooms. There is more insight there and it seems to be written from a much more objective perspective.
http://ventureb...music-industry/
Ooooh, I can’t wait to cyber with Seth Sternberg in our private Meebo Room! Seth’s got a tight tushy!
Yeah Duncan, how many times did Sandy Jen go down on you so you’d pump their release. There’s plenty of room for objectivity here, but you’ve obviously chosen to kiss the cushy Meebo ass once again. Is DFJ funding your startup too?
@ #7: Danny works for meebo.
While I think Meebo itself is a weak service, I am impressed with the amount of partners they have lined up.
I know when we spoke with them about a chat room, they boasted something like 7+ million users a day or something crazy like that. But I think that number referrers to IM messages sent because I just do not see that many people on the site.
They need to funnel the traffic from the IM side into these rooms if possible. The question is whether people use the IM side of Meebo as a tool versus simply hanging around in a chat room.
In any event, I do think their business model will have some trouble, and I am surprised they have this many partners despite a lack of a sales effort.
Hey Danny, I’d like to try the meebo room on the Mims site, but it takes over ten minutes to load with all the typical Myspace garbage. When I finally got the page to load, it was almost impossible to find it amongst all the other stupid widgets on the site. Myspace is a bloatware factory.
Thanks Meebo for adding yet another bandwidth hog to the endless supply of stupid MySpace pages.
Well I have used meebo a few times… Mostly to get onto Im during work. Evry since they got the new rooms… I havent seen many people in the room… I doubt what will happen next.. People dont want to chat into meebo… they use it to keep in touch with friends while at work… unless u change that its not gona work…
Meebo represents a lot of work from its team…But I don’t see the whole point. All this seems useless to me. And how are they going to make money? With advertising? Sounds a huge challenge to get a ROI to me.
#14: I agree Ian, they do have a lot of partners. Unfortunately, partnerships don’t make you money unless you have something to sell.
I think these rooms can promote discussions among fans and customers of a given band, product, or store. It also promotes the relationship between the vendor/band and the customer/fans. Not sure you all can make any judgment until it has been out a while.
What is with the intense negativity in every post recently? Go take your rydlin kiddies!
@#19 – I completely agree that you can’t make a judgement until the product has been out for a while for better or worse. The negativity is partially about meebo and partially about Duncan’s post.
I keep on checking this post to see if Duncan will help us understand his rationale for his exuberance about meebo…I guess I shouldn’t hold my breath.