14 DAY TRIAL // Meebo, the famous web-based alternative for Yahoo Messenger, received a new set of updates that can make the service more competitive for the Yahoo solution. The most important improvement is surely the implementation of Meebo Rooms that can help a user communicate with up to 80 members. However, the function is more powerful and can create a nice looking chat box on a certain website just like any other embedded element. The chat room can be customized with themes and can be made private, allowing the owners to chat only with invited users. According to TechCrunch, Meebo already signed deals with some famous companies that launched their own Meebo rooms.
"The company is announcing a number of partnerships who are launching their own branded Meebo Rooms tonight. Partners include blip.tv, Capitol Music Group, CNET, CollegeHumor, Flixster, Hearst Magazine Group's Popular Mechanics, Jive Records, MTV Networks' GameTrailers.com, NBC Universal, RockYou, Sugar Publishing, and VIBE Magazine," TechCrunch sustained today.
The not-so-cool update is obviously the implementation of the adverts that are now displayed every time a new video is embedded. The ad will be shown at the beginning of the ad, just like the pre-clip adverts prepared by YouTube. In the future, Meebo wants to insert one more, planning to allow the users to save the message archives straight into their account. At this time, Meebo stores only the current conversation.
It's obvious that Yahoo gets more and more competition that will challenge the company's products and especially the famous instant messaging client. However, the Sunnyvale company recently released a web-based version of Yahoo Messenger that can compete with Meebo. Yahoo also announced its plans include the instant messenger client straight into the Yahoo Mail's interface and create a web-based chat client just like the Gmail - Google Talk interoperability.