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

Google buys Meebo

blog.meebo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 116 posts

Re: Google buys Meebo

#32

Post by drivebyacct2 »

creativityland wrote: post #21
franze wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

buying a user base + migrating them to another platform is a very slippery slope (privacy and PR wise). think it's mostly about developers.

Nothing G+ won't try at this point ;)

Oh look, the tired "G+ sucks/is desperate" meme.

Re: Google buys Meebo

#34

Post by jpeterson »

starpilot wrote: post #22
rokhayakebe wrote: post #14

Meebo definitely went through its nine lives. I wonder what Google was trying to acquire through this purchase.

The talent. Meebo was started by Stanford grads who demonstrated their talent in developing a product and a launching company. It'd be a safe way to hire a few competent engineers, and I doubt the acquisition price contains much goodwill.

The talent. Meebo was started by Stanford grads...

Can we please get over this dopey fixation on big-name elite schools?

Re: Google buys Meebo

#35

Post by Karunamon »

jpeterson wrote: post #34
starpilot wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The talent. Meebo was started by Stanford grads who demonstrated their talent in developing a product and a launching company. It'd be a safe way to hire a few competent engineers, and I doubt the acquisition price contains much goodwill.

The talent. Meebo was started by Stanford grads... Can we please get over this dopey fixation on big-name elite schools?

Elite schools tend to have elite people. Funny how that works.

Re: Google buys Meebo

#38

Post by earl »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #14

Meebo definitely went through its nine lives. I wonder what Google was trying to acquire through this purchase.

Guessing: Meebo has been trying to make money via their behavioral targeting dataset. Meebo sees browsing activity of users via sites that embed their javascript and also through the plugins they get people to install in their browsers. It's a similar dataset to clearspring, who also do bt stuff. In 2011, Meebo bought mindset media who build psychometrics (eg [1]), with the idea of marrying psychometric targeting with meebo's bt dataset. Thus meebo's value to google: experience building and selling psychometrics; and a client list for psychometric targeting. Psychometrics is another targeting layer that would be sold in Google+ alongside dems targeting.

[1] http://www.mindset-media.com/marketers/profile/

Re: Google buys Meebo

#39

Post by Cyranix »

jpeterson wrote: post #34
starpilot wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The talent. Meebo was started by Stanford grads who demonstrated their talent in developing a product and a launching company. It'd be a safe way to hire a few competent engineers, and I doubt the acquisition price contains much goodwill.

The talent. Meebo was started by Stanford grads... Can we please get over this dopey fixation on big-name elite schools?

So... the fact that Google also has some Stanford background doesn't seem pertinent to you? What an unusual knee-jerk reaction.

Re: Google buys Meebo

#40

Post by duaneb »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #3

To me this makes sense as Meebo has really transformed themselves from a "chat" company to an "advertising toolbar" company. They (for better or worse) absolutely dominate the annoying popup toolbar at the bottom of a website market. Ex: http://www.slate.com

I have never seen that before - maybe my brain just tunes it out.
Post reply on HN