14 DAY TRIAL // Integrated online chat has become increasingly popular and these days it looks like every service has a chat component built in. After Facebook first launched the feature, which turned out to be a success, many social networking sites, but also other services, started deploying it as well. But the problem is that some smaller outfits don't have the resources necessary to build, integrate and maintain a chat feature into their platform. It's these sites that Meebo, a popular online chat service, caters to with its Community IM platform.
Meebo has been developing the service for over a year and today it is getting a major update. The product allows smaller sites to quickly integrate chat capabilities using Meebo's web-based chat client. Seventy-five sites have already signed on with the new product and it is already available for 32 of them. The latest update will bring a host of new sharing capabilities adding functionality that makes Community IM more than just a chat app.
Until now Community IM users were only able to chat with their friends on the same site but after today's upgrade all the protocols and platforms that Meebo supports will be able to communicate with one another. This means that for example you could use your Facebook chat account to talk to a friend that uses Gtalk.
The second big addition coming to Community IM is the new share feature. This will enable users to easily share content with their friends or on Facebook, Twitter or by email. Clicking the 'Share' button will allow you to send the site you are currently browsing as a link to one of your chat buddies (without having to copy/paste anything) as well as share it on the popular social networks. This new interoperability should greatly increase the user experience and make it a lot easier to stay connected to friends across multiple products and services.