Meebo Adds File Sharing To Webchat
Michael Arrington
24 comments »
Web chat startup Meebo, still basking in the glow of bringing instant messaging to the iPhone, is releasing a much requested new feature tonight: file sharing.
There are dozens of web based file sharing applications, such as YouSendIt and DropSend (we reviewed four P2P solutions here), but users often want to simply send a file to a friend while chatting with them. This is easy with desktop based chat, which usually allows for drag and drop file transfers. But there was no equivalent with web chat until now.
The back end of the service is hosted at Amazon S3. Meebo is eating the cost of the service, but limits file transfers to 10 MB each, with a 30 MB/month send limit per user. Look for a new “send file” button when chatting with someone on the Meebo website.
Meebo has raised a total of $12.5 million from Sequoia and Draper Fisher Jurvetson. They say 6 million people use the service monthly and spent around 2 hours per day, several times per week, on the site.
Mike - the one thing I noted in my post (click my name) is wondering whether the files are stored on amazon - do you know? I am not sure users would like that - but I guess you make a valid point about a comparison to dropsend. They store the files.
Meebo is pretty impressive. Not the technology, the group of people. They’re pretty on point in hitting user needs and features… hell of a business organization, it seems.
Allen - it uses S3, not a P2P architecture. Same setup as yousendit.
So, we have to wait for the file to upload to Amazon S3, then once it’s uploaded, then the file is transferred to the person? Is the file deleted once the other person downloads it? Seems like the logical thing. I have used Meebo for a while and now I am definitely gonna keep sticking to it. I wonder if they will change the restrictions. Funding doesn’t seem to be a problem for now, they are pretty hot, what with the iPhone application and now this.
http://www.carlosrigueira.com/deutsch/index.php
Deutschkurse mit dem Lehrer Carlos Rigueira
Hey, Matt from meebo here. Good question re: storing files… When you upload a file with meebo, we send it to S3, and send a link back to the receiver. The file expires after 4 hours. We’ll test out that approach, collect feedback from users/stats and then maybe make some improvement for v2. Definitely let us know what you think.
Wow, DropSend. What happened with DropSend in the end? The sale never happened?
Is there a picture or screenshot? I don’t care to load the site, sign on, figure out where it is, etc.
Have been hearing alot about them around. Moreover they were in spotlight due to the recent venture capital they have raised from Sequoia
Don - screen shot below. Not much to see. Third button from the left pulls up the file system. choose a file, other side gets a link
6 million users/2 hrs/day = zero revenue…when are Seth and the girls going to figure out how to monetize?
how do these guys make (or plan to make) any money? display adSense based on keywords in your chats?
Why always Meebo, isn’t there something to be said about Ebuddy?
I’m Dutch and Ebuddy is like our only bit of innovation in the country.
They need support !
Meebo is just simply badass… I’ve always tried to spread the word about various web 2.0 applications and trends to my friends and family. Of all the things that I’ve tried to push, Meebo seems to be the one that most people adopted without hesitation…
Why would I use this instead of AIM, iChat, MSmessenger, Y!IM, gtalk, or our internal jabber? 30MB/month file limits? Maybe for people using public machines.
RE: “Why would I use this instead of AIM, iChat, MSmessenger, Y!IM, gtalk, or our internal jabber? 30MB/month file limits? Maybe for people using public machines.”
I use it instead of AIM AND iChat AND MSmessenger AND Y!IM AND gtalk AND jabber.
I used to be a huge trillian fan, (still am, honestly) but the one thing that got me was that I use 3-4 different computers on a regular basis. Thus thing such as contacts real names (I renamed everybody) and chat logs would be split up among several computers.
who is using meebo besides early, early adopters. honestlty, outside of the super tech community no one i know has heard of digg, never mind meebo.
i’m starting to doubt all of these high user numbers.
yes, i wonder how they will make money also.
Hey mmt, one might think that meebo is only used by the web 2.0 crowd like so many cool services, but it actually has wide adoption among the normals. You can visualize its usage here:
http://blog.meebo.com/map
jason, how do you determine anything further than geographic location from that map? that map could very well be, as mmt points out, millions of early adopters and power users around the world…
Arrington, do you have any stock from Meebo, because the amount of coverage you give them makes we wonder. The company is passe…let’s see some coverage on some other deals that are actually disruptive. I think if they had a real CEO 2 years ago, they could have been on the beach with the YouTubers…instead they can’t seem to get out of their own way.
File sharing…come on!
Mike and mmt: If those are merely power users, then they sure are a LOT of power users. Honestly, I got into the chatrooms and such, and yes, there are “early adopters” but mostly because they like the fact that they can use meebo from anywhere without having to install anything and without much technical know-how