Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Meebo discontinued: shutting down on July 11, 2012

meebo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 108 posts

Re: Meebo discontinued: shutting down on July 11, 2012

#61

Post by citricsquid »

bpm140 wrote: post #60
citricsquid wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, so if Meebo is already "dead" why did Google buy Meebo? Google bought Meebo last week! Surely the conclusion from this is that Google bought Meebo FOR the Meebo bar, not that the Meebo bar has failed. The Meebo bar product is the one they're continuing!

Google bought Meebo for the team, not the product.

I assumed that wasn't the case as in the original comment thread people reported that Meebo had been letting staff go because of the acquisition, although I guess that could mean they're only interested in a small portion of the team. My mistake for discounting that possibility.

Re: Meebo discontinued: shutting down on July 11, 2012

#62

Post by InclinedPlane »

mgkimsal wrote: post #34
omh wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The services that they're shutting down were all provided for free with no obvious source of significant revenue. If you were paying them and they were making a profit then you might have a better chance.

I haven't looked in to this particular instance, but in general... why buy a company that has no significant revenue? It's not like it's some shock to google - "oh no, meebo doesn't make enough money!?" So... yeah, the services were provided 'free' in some sense, but meebo was able to continue running before this. Just... yeah.. buy stuff, shut it down. If it's not a significant source of revenue, it probably doesn't…

Userbase, talent, technology. It's surprisingly easy to have a very well put together company that nevertheless is missing some key elements needed for profitability.

Re: Meebo discontinued: shutting down on July 11, 2012

#63

Post by ricardobeat »

Karunamon wrote: post #57
linhat wrote: post #21

Sorry for the language, but WTF GOOGLE? Meebo has been around since forever (well, actually 2005) when it was only a web messenger and used by a LOT of people whenever you couldn't or wouldn't want to install a native messaging app, or messaging was blocked on your network. I actually know people that used Meebo exactly for that reason, no installation required and furthermore if you created yourself a Meebo account,…

Honestly, there are better web messengers out there. Off the very top of my head, there's IM+ and eBuddy. Hell, even Trillian has a web version now.

None of them have the polish and stability of Meebo Messenger, I don't know what criteria for "better" they excel at.

Re: Meebo discontinued: shutting down on July 11, 2012

#64

Post by mtgx »

mrchess wrote: post #48

What is with all the hate? Meebo tried, tried again, they failed, so they exited. 1. Meebo Messenger was great, but was not pulling in nearly enough revenue 2. Meebo tried to pivot to an advertising bar for more revenue with no luck Understand that Google probably didn't buy Meebo with the intent of shutting its services. Meebo was most likely already failing (hence the 70MM overall raise and 100MM exit), and would h…

I'm actually surprised they chose Meebo over Ebuddy, which I've preferred over Meebo for many years (lately it has also become a bit too bloated, so I've been using imo.im). But maybe Google knows something I don't about the Meebo team.

Only the most important and biggest tech companies we can expect to still "be alive" for more than a decade from now, maybe 2. Most of the others should disappear within a decade, and I think that goes for Facebook, too, unless they produce something revolutionary over the next few years.

Re: Meebo discontinued: shutting down on July 11, 2012

#65

Post by mtgx »

ricardobeat wrote: post #8

Oh, come on. Fuck this. Can we ever trust a service to keep running for even a third of our lifetime?

You're not serious, are you? What's the average lifetime of a company - 10 years? And since the pace of change keeps accelerating, that means the average life keeps getting shorter (used to be 15 years, etc).

Re: Meebo discontinued: shutting down on July 11, 2012

#66

Post by bpm140 »

citricsquid wrote: post #61
bpm140 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google bought Meebo for the team, not the product.

I assumed that wasn't the case as in the original comment thread people reported that Meebo had been letting staff go because of the acquisition, although I guess that could mean they're only interested in a small portion of the team. My mistake for discounting that possibility.

They let go people from the sales team. Execs, engineering and product were all hired (assuming they made it through the standard Google hiring process).

Re: Meebo discontinued: shutting down on July 11, 2012

#67

Post by jmount »

mrchess wrote: post #48

What is with all the hate? Meebo tried, tried again, they failed, so they exited. 1. Meebo Messenger was great, but was not pulling in nearly enough revenue 2. Meebo tried to pivot to an advertising bar for more revenue with no luck Understand that Google probably didn't buy Meebo with the intent of shutting its services. Meebo was most likely already failing (hence the 70MM overall raise and 100MM exit), and would h…

Meebo bar was truly nasty.

Re: Meebo discontinued: shutting down on July 11, 2012

#69

Post by johnrob »

bpm140 wrote: post #60
citricsquid wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, so if Meebo is already "dead" why did Google buy Meebo? Google bought Meebo last week! Surely the conclusion from this is that Google bought Meebo FOR the Meebo bar, not that the Meebo bar has failed. The Meebo bar product is the one they're continuing!

Google bought Meebo for the team, not the product.

100 million is pretty high for a talent acquisition. How big is the team?

Re: Meebo discontinued: shutting down on July 11, 2012

#70

Post by johnrob »

nirajd wrote: post #49

does anyone see a trend? startups' general exit is through acquisition. how can you secure customers when your potential users know that some day, your marginal revenues will require you to exit through acquisition? services getting shutdown shortly after..

While most exits are indeed via acquisition, very few startups actually exit.
Post reply on HN