14 DAY TRIAL // According to information published by Internetnews.com Google should announce this week the acquisition of Meetroduction.
Meetroduction is actually a social networking service, which gives its users the possibility to find conversation partners and friends in the real world. Meetroduction combines an Instant Messaging service with one for searching persons.
Users will just have to create a profile and then start looking for someone located in a nearby area and, if that person is online, they can start a conversation.
Meetroduction is compatible with all the important Instant Messaging clients, such as Yahoo Messenger, ICQ and AOL Instant Messenger.
Internetnews.com, which cites a source familiar with the transaction, considers that this is the first step made by Google towards its own Instant Messaging service.
Rumors saying that Google is studying the possibility to introduce an IM service are not something new, the majority of analysts considering that in this way, users would spend more time on the search engine's site.
Google's initiative to launch a Home Page that can be personalized is considered as a stage in the evolution of the engine towards a portal, the launching of an IM being regarded as the next logical step.