14 DAY TRIAL // Google has confirmed that it's buying Meebo, the social media company that started out as instant messaging client. The Meebo team, which is smaller than it used to be, will be joining the company and working on Google+. Most major acquisitions of late have been centered around Google+.
There's no official price, but rumors say Google paid some $100 million, €80.38 million for the ever-pivoting company.
The company raised $70 million, €56.26 million in funding so far, so there's no big payday, but it also generated some income across its seven-year span. What's more, Meebo laid off a lot of people prior to the acquisition.
And, since this obviously wasn't for the technology or the product but for the people, the price may be justified.
Meebo was doing alright for itself as recently as a couple of years ago. Its most recent somewhat successful product is the annoying chat bar you sometimes see at the bottom of websites.
Meebo still had some 100 million active users back in December, so its products should be valuable as well, though it's unclear how much use Google has for them.
What's more, it may be that many of those users were simply visiting sites with the Meebo toolbar, making them a lot less valuable than actually engaged users.
"We are always looking for better ways to help users share content and connect with others across the web, just as they do in real life. With the Meebo team's expertise in social publisher tools, we believe they will be a great fit with the Google+ team. We look forward to closing the transaction and working with the Meebo team to create more ways for users to engage online," Google said in a statement.