Web based instant messaging platform meebo has announced a new partnership with Live Nation and The Firm to promote “Family Values,” a series of live music events billed as “this summer’s biggest tour.”
The partnership includes concert promotion and concert presence. Music fans visiting meebo.com, the Family Values Tour website and featured band websites have a chance to win 2 free concert tickets and backstage access to every day of the tour.
At the live concerts, fans can share videos and pictures in the official Family Values “Circle Pit” meebo room and win prizes based on their submissions.
Meebo follows in the footsteps of Buzznet, who is promoting their service on the Vans Warped Tour. It would seem that live music events are becoming fertile ground for promoting startups and networking related sites.
The 2007 Family Values Tour is co-headlined by Korn and Evanescence.
That was the strategy APPLE used in the early 1980s – by producing their own music festivals
Meebo should just stick with instant messaging. In my opinion, they do a great job.
-Chris
http://www.nerdcouncil.com
their transformation from an IM provider to a platform has been nothing short of astounding!!
Duncan – I’d like to thank you for toning down your post about meebo. It’s very refreshing to not read hyperbole.
Are they serious? They still do not know how to make money on their core, and now they are branching out with lame stuff like this?
What the heck is Meebo trying to do? I would go nuts if I were one of their investors.
I love it. Free tickets and user input welcomed. Concert 2.0 baby.
What a great way to get the message out. DEAL!
might as well go into alternative opportunities, none of the IM majors, or anyone dealing with the IM majors on any monetary level is going to touch meebo. the majors will never backdoor each other. if they wanted to, yahoo could have put up a msn layer years before they had a legit frontdoor route to do so. likewise the majors will never allow themselves to be meaningfully backdoored by a startup if the traffic gets serious. meebo is the only startup i know that made their own poison pill.
Funny that no one seems to understand what is going on here. Meebo isn’t going into a new business that are simply SPONSORING a concert tour, just like Pepsi, Verizon, Budwieser and other big brands do? Not that crazy, they want to promote their service to kids and “shocker” they are at concerts.
This is not Concert 2.0 or anything else. It is simply a branding play. You are all probably confused because TC is about start up deals, not advertising a promo deals .
unless your start-up is music-related, spending start-up dollars on music-related promotions is a sign of sloppy use of those VC dollars, poor implulse control from senior management, and lack of marketing strategy/leadership.
it is a great chance to get backstage passes for hot chicks, but it will produce nothing beyond some action for meebo execs.
a strong VC would tell them to get laid on their own dime.
@ #7: JM, I think the whiners are referring to the Meebo rooms feature, which by all accounts, isn’t so hot. I agree, partnering has been Meebo’s strong suit, but I think most people will agree they first need a profitable product to promote. IMHO, leeching IM traffic off the big boys and infantile chatrooms don’t seem too promising.
@ #8: as much as i dislike meebo, you can’t really accuse them of having weak VCs…i believe Sequoia led their A round and DFJ led their B round. not too shabby.
@ Eli
Just shows that we are in a huge bubble when the “so called” blue chip VC’s throw money at every “web 2.0″ start up they can find. Of course, day 1 of any finance class begins with the concept of “diversification”, so who can blame them.