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Category Archive for Meebo

Seth Sternberg: From Nothing to Something at Meebo

September 21, 2009

Terrific post on Techcrunch this evening by Seth Sternberg, the Founder of Meebo. True seed funded Meebo and it has been a privilege for us to be involved with the company. Seth extols the virtues of team, product, and launch. . all three fundamentals to our investment approach at True.

Great people create great products.
Seth, Sandy and Elaine have always demonstrated a remarkable ability to build and release truly elegant product. They have done so cleanly, crisply, and quickly. Meebo runs fast, looks good, and flawlessly connects you from any browser to all major IM networks. It does this (and more) in seconds, and the Meebo design has set the bar high for the minimalist, functional, and appealing designs of the Web 2.0 movement. We were honored to be Meebo’s Seed investor because we recognized that Seth, Sandy and Elaine needed a trusted partner who could move quickly and share their belief in their product.

Great people envision great markets for those products.
What you see in Seth’s post is the same thing that made our initial investment decision so easy: Seth has incredibly clear vision. This vision served him well not just for where saw the future or IM and web-based messaging systems, but it was essential in how he saw the company start and evolve. The reason he stated for raising his first $100K was to get the servers he had bought off of his personal credit cards so he and his team could focus more on product. It wasn’t to hire, buy office space, or “scale marketing.” Seth knew where the market was heading, and he knew he had to get Meebo out in the world.

Great people can change the way we live and dramatically improve our world.
Meebo’s products connect millions of people on a daily basis with one another instantly, seamlessly, and beautifully. Meebo was also among the first Web 2.0 companies with significant consumer traction, and the company served as an early beacon of hope to many, many entrepreneurs who saw the power of a new breed of web applications through Meebo’s example. As a VC, it was common to hear others say, “you know, we want to be the Meebo of _____” or, ” we envision great design, just like Meebo.” The entrepreneurs inspired by Meebo went on to build great product, create jobs and opportunity to the communities around them, and provide all of us with additional consumer capability and choice. With Seth’s recent blog post, he’s hard at work inspiring more entrepreneurs.

Thank you Seth.

At a time when there appears to be so much confusion in Washington about where jobs and innovation comes from, it is refreshing to see such a clear example of creation and inspiration at Meebo.

Meebo’s New Interface

September 15, 2008

In October, Meebo will launch Community IM, a service enabling sites to offer their own web-based instant messaging services. Meebo is a great place to chat with friends regardless of their IM service, but Meebo’s new white-label platform will also allow other sites to offer this functionality without expending the resources to develop it themselves as Facebook and MySpace have. For a sneak peek of the new interface, read Eric Eldon’s post on VentureBeat.

Meebo Analysizes Advertising

June 26, 2008

Meebo has partnered with 33Across in an effort to more accurately research and analyze user demographics and marketing promotion effectiveness. This targeting allows Meebo to charge more on the dollar for advertising.

“We’re giving advertisers more information on how their ads are pervading the network,” Meebo’s Martin Green said. “We’re looking at the nature of the people who shared that studio’s trailer or content with friends. Are they (the) same ‘connectors’ in the network? Or did you appeal to people who don’t normally act on promotions?”

Elevator Pitches

June 3, 2008

GigaOm’s NewTeeVee reported on TechCrunch’s Elevator Pitches launch. While all of these are interesting to watch, our favorite is Seth Sternberg’s Meebo elevator pitch, of course.

Meebo at SXSW

March 3, 2008

Meebo is the official live chat at SXSW Interactive. This official live chat service will enable attendees of any panel to discuss in real-time. Brings whole new meaning to the word interactive!

Meebo Rooms’ New Additions

February 13, 2008

The Meebo Rooms product now has a developer API, which allows creation of a Meebo Room on an individual’s website. With this new API, websites will be able to easily incorporate live messaging, and users will be able to interact in real time with their favorite sites.

Meebo Network is a new chat and advertising platform, which provides a network of premium community, media, and entertainment partners. Meebo will share 50pc of the Meebo Rooms ad revenue with these partners. Revision3, Piczo, RockYou, Social Project, and Tagged are all partners in the new Meebo Network.

Keep up the great work!

Thanks To The Academy

January 19, 2008

The Crunchies’ Academy, that is. Meebo took home the Crunchie award for Best Consumer Start-up at tonight’s ceremony. GigaOm, Read/Write Web, TechCrunch, and VentureBeat co-hosted this award ceremony to honor the best of the web. The readers picked the winners, with over 100,000 votes cast.

Great job, Seth, Sandy, Elaine & Team!

Bling for Blogs

January 18, 2007

Matt Mullenweg, creator of WordPress, shares how many WordPress bloggers are adding Meebo & Sphere It widgets to their blogs.

Basics: Some Bling for Your Blog, The New York Times, January 18, 2007

Meebo puts IM into the Web

August 2, 2006

Meebo is a hit with the MySpace generation and big business, too.

The Next Phase of Instant Messaging, Fortune, August 2, 2006