In order to expand its social networking service, Google will acquire Silicon Valley startup, Meebo. The acquisition was announced last Monday, and it was rumored that the deal’s financial term is around $100 million.
Acquiring More Google Plus Tools
The search engine giant’s acquisition of Meebo will bring in more tools to Google Plus, which could attract more users to spend time on the social network. Since its debut almost a year ago, Google social media website has garnered over 170 million users. However, it has trouble persuading people to visit their account regularly.
In a report posted by Eric Eldon on TechCrunch, Google will use Meebo’s expertise to build a publisher tool for Google Plus. As the search engine giant said in a statement:
“We are always looking for better ways to help user share content and connect with other across the Web, just as they do in real life. With the Meebo team’s expertise in social publisher tools, we believe that they will be a great fit with Google Plus team.”
However, it is unsure whether there will be a Google Plus toolbar coming. Meebo will probably morph its properties into the social network. Meanwhile, there were also reports that there were layoffs happening within the company’s sales and marketing department.
Meebo’s Next Journey
Meebo helps publishers and advertisers to connect with Internet users for a longer period. They started out as a system for connecting people through instant messaging. Since then, they have built other communication features—such as social toolbar and ad platform—that are used by about 100 million online users in the United States. As Meebo wrote on its official blog:
“For more than seven years, we’ve been helping publishers find deeper relationships with their users and to make their sites more social and engaging. Together with Google, we’re super jazzed to roll up our sleeves and get cracking on even bigger and better ways to help users and website owners alike. We’ve had a blast building Meebo so far and we’re really excited to start the next leg of our journey.”
Founded by Seth Sternberg, Elaine Wherry and Sandy Jen in 2005, Meebo was able to raise $70 million in venture capital. On the other hand, Google has spent over $16 billion in buying more than 140 companies since the end of 2009. That includes the search engine giant’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility Holdings.