Meebo’s chat and sharing tools continue to spread around the web, with the company announcing the Hollywood Reporter as its latest partner. Over the next few months, THR publisher Nielsen Business Media will add the Meebo Bar to other sites too, such as MediaWeek and AdWeek.
The Meebo Bar started out as a way for social sites like myYearbook to add instant messaging abilities, but it has spread to news publications like TechCrunch, and even to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s website. By allowing users to chat with their friends and to share content on services like Twitter and Facebook, Meebo says it increases user engagement and traffic. It also brings in money for its partners, since it shares revenue from the ads it places on the bar.
Chief executive Seth Sternberg tells me more than 250 sites have signed up to use the Meebo Bar, and it’s live on around 100 of them. User behavior differs from site-to-site, of course. Social sites tend to see more chatting, while news sites tend to see more content-sharing. The service doubles the amount of sharing on a site, on average, though that number is quite a bit lower for sites with techie audiences (where readers are probably sharing a lot of content already).
June 5th: The AI Audit in NYC
Join us next week in NYC to engage with top executive leaders, delving into strategies for auditing AI models to ensure fairness, optimal performance, and ethical compliance across diverse organizations. Secure your attendance for this exclusive invite-only event.
In addition to announcing the Nielsen partnership, Meebo is rolling out some new features today, including the ability to share headlines and text (not just photos and links) by dragging-and-dropping them to different contacts and services.
