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October 17, 2007

Meebo Adds IM to Firefox

Erick Schonfeld

18 comments »

picture-3.pngMeebo, the Web-based instant-messaging application, now has an add-on for the Firefox Web browser. If you use Firefox, you can now IM all your friends from a side-pane, and drag links to anyone on your buddy list. When you get a new IM, you get a visual notification (such as a blinking tab or a pop-up toast).

Meebo is a completely Web-based IM service, unlike Skype or AIM or Yahoo Instant Messenger, which are most often accessed through separate clients. Meebo also bridges all the major IM services (AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Gtalk, ICQ, and Jabber). But up until now (unless you are one of the five people out there who use Flock), you had to go to Meebo.com to use it or go to a partner Website that embeds the Meebo widget.

Meebo already gets 6 million monthly logins (one million of those being daily), and 140 million messages a day are going back and forth. That number should keep rising with this add-on. Now users (at least those with Firefox) don’t have to go through the hassle of opening a new tab or another Web browser window to send an IM. Now your IM can be built into your browser, with a side pane that pops open when you get a message, and disappears when you don’t need it.

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Meebo
Firefox
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 at 4:02 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. Meebo agrega mensajería instantánea a Firefox

    October 26th, 2007 at 12:00 am

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  1. Guthri

    October 17th, 2007 at 4:16 pm

    Wrong - yahoo already has a web based interface.

  2. Frodo

    October 17th, 2007 at 4:53 pm

    Does it encrypt, like GAIM or Trillian? Otherwise, not interested.

  3. John

    October 17th, 2007 at 5:10 pm

    “Meebo already gets 6 million monthly logins”

    Is this counting all of the “IM service logins”?

    e.g. if a user logs in to 5 accounts such as yahoo, google, msn, etc do they consider that 5 logins?

  4. Nate

    October 17th, 2007 at 5:18 pm

    Just gave it a try out.., although the toast window is kind of nice.., i dont see the point of using this firefox add-on. The sell point of meebo is being web based and not having to install, yet people need to go to the mozilla site to install the add-on. Next.., you are not really msging from the add-on.., it is really just providing the toast functionality.,. and when you click on the toast i behaves the same as if you click on the meebo site tab.

    By default without the add-on.., the browser window with blink if you are in a different window and there is a new msg.., same goes for the tab if you are on a different tab in the same browser.

    Also.., you still have to go to meebo to msg.., instead of having to type the url the add-on opens and tab and logs you in.

    To add to Guthri.., AIM also has a web based version..,and quite a nice API/SDK.

  5. Ryan Spahn

    October 17th, 2007 at 5:32 pm

    Yeah, I thought it was an actual built in Firefox app, where you send and receive your IMs in Gmail IM fashion; IM window(s) that appear on the bottom right of browser no matter what site you are on.

    Hopefully they are going in this direction!

  6. Great....but

    October 17th, 2007 at 5:47 pm

    Seems cool –> but still don’t get the funding or business model of meebo ?

  7. Steven Loi

    October 17th, 2007 at 6:02 pm

    Is there an ETA for a Linux based Meebo plugin for Firebox?

  8. Steve Ballmer

    October 17th, 2007 at 6:24 pm

    Don’t use FireBox!
    It does not render sites correctly, not even close!
    http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com

  9. Chris

    October 17th, 2007 at 6:55 pm

    This seems very cool. I look forward to seeing more innovation from them on this. I am definitely more likely to use Meebo now.

  10. Evorgleb

    October 17th, 2007 at 8:27 pm

    Interesting enough but what we really want is the official Meebo facebook application. If they can get that together I really may not have a reason to leave facebook at all.

  11. Coretta Jackson

    October 17th, 2007 at 9:49 pm

    This is going to save me so much time!

  12. David Bradley

    October 17th, 2007 at 11:35 pm

    Feebo?

  13. Misanthropy Today

    October 18th, 2007 at 3:15 am

    As Nate said, this plugin/extension is rather worthless. If you’re a meebo user, which I am, here is what it does:

    It allows you to see (or hide) your buddy list (one of them) while youre on other tabs. A tab with your normal Meebo must be open as well. Basically it does what I suspect most meebo users don’t want, that is to make their instant messages more intrusive.

  14. Mickaël Rémond

    October 18th, 2007 at 4:12 am

    If you want to try a more advanced Firefox IM client, you should have a look at OneTeam:

    - http://www.process-one.net/en/oneteam/
    - Open Testing on: http://oneteam.im/

    It will be soon out of beta, with more gateways to exiting network :)

  15. Chris Przybycien

    October 18th, 2007 at 5:56 am

    Careful which TechCrunch40 startups you slag off, you might get your Twitter account banned!

  16. Ben Geyer

    October 18th, 2007 at 6:41 am

    Huh. Only 5 users of Flock? I wonder who the other 4 are?

  17. Alex

    October 20th, 2007 at 3:52 pm

    The extension doesn’t work in Linux !!

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