Earlier quoted context omitted.
That toolbar is godawful, and I have no idea how they managed to sign up so many companies to display it. I mean.. it's not like they had access to all these advertisers since they were primarily a chat company. It's something that can be duplicated by any one of us. What gives?
That is a story I've been waiting to read for some time now. AFAIK, it doesn't exist yet.
Google buys Meebo
91–100 of 116 posts
Re: Google buys Meebo
#92To 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
Does the toolbar even allow chatting with site staff like Olark? (seemingly no) whilst a useful thing to do right now: Olark is also expensive.
Re: Google buys Meebo
#93Re: Google buys Meebo
#94Or they could join the Google+ team as G brings videoconferencing in-house.
Re: Google buys Meebo
#95I met the Meebo team at SXSW in 2008 and, being the uppity entrepreneur, I asked if I could stay in touch with them... Even though they were super busy, Seth would take a call over the phone when my startup was about to get acquired or when we were trying as hard as we could to raise money in late 2008. When I was playing a game of Underground Assassins in 2011, nobody knew my name. So they went by my t-shirt's logo…
Re: Google buys Meebo
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Adblock meebocdn.com and they go away.
I'm not sure if I'm adding meebocdn.com to my blacklist correctly. But I was able to block Slate's toolbar through the AdBlock interface...
edit for links:
link for Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mlomiejdfkolichcfl...?
link for Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ghostery/
Re: Google buys Meebo
#97I didn't realize it at the time, as it was my first time going through the interview/offer dance, but having much more experience with these things now (from both sides of the process), I can honestly say it ranks as the best I've ever heard of.
a) The technical portion of the interview was the best I've ever been through. It culminated in them asking me to set aside 4 hours to come into their office and work alongside them (asking questions if I needed to), writing an HTTP server in C.
I almost shat my pants when I heard the question, but to this day its the most rewarding technical interview of my life. I started off with a problem I wasn't sure I could sove in the allotted time, I _built_ something, and it _worked_. (Well, it mostly worked. There was one elusive bug I couldn't figure out that day. I had to leave because of another commitment, but I promised to come back the next day and fix it. When I got back the next day, a senior Meebo engineer had spent 3 hours debugging my code until he figured out the problem. We code reviewed my code line-by-line as a wrap-up to the interview.)
b) The non-technical portion of the interview was the best I've ever been through. They were very concerned about the ever-elusive "culture fit", and the entire team made an effort to get to know me, taking me out to meals, etc. I met all three of the co-founders (Seth, Elaine, and Sandy), all of whom I'm sure were busy trying to build a product and grow a company, but they were incredibly warm, genuinely interested in getting to know me, and generous with their time.
c) They gave me a great offer. For a fresh-out-of-college student with not much real work experience, both the salary and the equity portions of my offer were extremely generous. I didn't even have to negotiate. At the time, Seth explained they didn't want to go through a contentious negotiation process, so they were opening off with a generous offer and it wasn't really open to negotiation. It was, indeed, a generous offer. (Five years of experience later, and I'm making less money, adjusted for inflation, than Meebo offered me as a fresh-out-of-school untried new hire.)
d) The post-offer process was the best I've been through. At the time, I knew nothing about startups, stock options, VC, etc. I didn't even know how much I didn't know. At his own initiative, Seth (the CEO!), took the time to explain the equity portion of my offer. The offer included a number of options and a strike price (standard), but unprompted told me about the other numbers I should be concerned with: total shares outstanding, fully diluted % stake, preference multiples, etc. There's much more transparency about this stuff today (blogs, etc), but at the time no one else explained this stuff to you (and as a stupid college student, you wouldn't know to ask). Even today, in a much more competitive hiring environment, I hear about companies that tell experienced engineers (who know what they're negotiating) that certain numbers which are essential to understanding an equity offer (like total number of shares outstanding) are "confidential".
I ended up turning down the offer, but I have enormous admiration and respect for Seth, Sandy, Elaine, and the whole team at Meebo. Congratulations on your many successes over the years, and I hope to continue seeing great things from you in the future.
Re: Google buys Meebo
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was a couple of steps in between I think - didn't they also do some sort of news/feed syndication or "following"? Till Gmail and Google Talk became popular, Meebo was my MSN replacement of choice.
What the heck is wrong with ICQ as an "MSN replacement"? If the new thing (MSN) sucks, and the old thing (ICQ) still works, why go to a NEWER thing? Now, I have no trouble understanding why you'd eventually go to gChat; it's clearly superior.
Re: Google buys Meebo
#99I met the Meebo team at SXSW in 2008 and, being the uppity entrepreneur, I asked if I could stay in touch with them... Even though they were super busy, Seth would take a call over the phone when my startup was about to get acquired or when we were trying as hard as we could to raise money in late 2008. When I was playing a game of Underground Assassins in 2011, nobody knew my name. So they went by my t-shirt's logo…
Off topic, but what is underground assassins? Google is not helping.
The objective is to tag enemy players and become the last player standing.
Re: Google buys Meebo
#100Meebo 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.