Meebo Tries to One-Up Facebook’s Chat

Perhaps the one thing I advocate more than the advancement of technology and the internet is using the success of one idea to slingshot ahead to the bigger picture; after all, isn't that the only way advancement really occurs anyway?  Meebo, known as being a successful instant messaging aggregator, just announced a new project called "Meebo Community Instant Messaging," a service that is designed to take the instant messaging platforms which are now very popular on social networking sites, and unify them on one single meta-platform. 

This shouldn't really come as any surprise — you'd have to figure that Facebook and other social networking site's success with their own individual instant messaging programs would inevitably lead to someone or someones trying to make a buck off everyone's little community.  Meebo saw that opportunity and capitalized.  The concept is quite genius and should be very profitable…if social networking sites all go the instant messaging route, and Meebo can convince them its meta-platform is worth their time and money.

So far, quite a few reputable platforms have already signed on to the new project.  Venture Beat reports that Flixter, Piczo, Dance Jam, Addict Games, Sugar Publishing, Tagged and mYearbook are on board and all those platforms will now share their messaging communities.  One of the problems with Facebook's messaging service is that it has obvious limitations — I cannot chat with friends on any other platform, which means I would still have to have multiple social sites open to do what Meebo intends to do with Meebo Community Instant Messaging.

There are drawbacks.  Part of selling a whole gaggle of networks on unifying under one large instant messaging flag comes at a price.  Meebo was already known (for better or worse) for running advertisements on its platform.  The new plan will share the revenue from the advertisements between the involved parties.  

Some believe that Google still has potential to be the outright winner in the messaging game.  Web Social is still in the works, but when the almighty Google titan finally debuts the project, it will most certainly be a threat to smaller communities (even those with as many users as the aforementioned social companies).  Money and politics are the name of the game, so you can probably forget the big social players picking any side until a clear winner steps forward, or someone lesser coughs up a lot of cash. 

Hopefully Meebo's platform will succeed.  If it does, then non-participant platforms will be forced to devise similar advances, lest they be left in the dust.  If I know Zuckerburg and Facebook, I would bet that Meebo's move to unify lesser social networks will spark some similar creation in the Facebook labs.  Or maybe Zuckerburg could just offer to write the code for Meebo and take it back to Facebook.  Either way works with me.