Well-funded instant messaging and sharing service Meebo is annoucing a new product tonight that will offer loyalty programs and website recommendations for frequent visitors to any site around the web.
The new Meebo MiniBar, not to be confused with the drastically overpriced hotel fare, is a free way for users to choose to share the sites they visit with their friends from various social neetworks including Facebook, to discover related sites frequented by people with similar interests and to gain VIP status on their favorite sites. The technology will be available on Tuesday and will roll out over time to become visible to the 180 million unique users who visit a page that uses Meebo monthly.
This is Not a Game
Cynics may roll their eyes at the extension of the “check in” metaphor to individual web sites, but Meebo emphasizes that its new system is not about competition for Foursquare-style mayorships.
The Meebo MiniBar will be accessed using a browser extension that will be available for Chrome, Firefox or IE starting on Tuesday, or a button inserted first by a select few corporate partner website publishers, then later on any site that wishes.
Will it be worth using? I suspect that users will find it helpful, interesting, attractive and enjoyable. Website publishers will find it suits their interests of facilitating sharing, discovery and repeat visitors. Meebo says that VIP status, which a user acquired through repeated check-ins at the same site, will be available to publishers by API, so publishers will be able to offer whatever kind of benefit they like to their most loyal visitors.
Those Who Passed This Way Before
Other companies have tried to do things like this; two Colorado companies in particular. Many companies have attempted to help users do something called co-browsing, or social browsing but OneRiot was one of the best-known. It then became a real-time search company and has since focused on selling advertising. The interface for sharing what pages you visited through OneRiot was confusing, unwieldy and unattractive.
Web page check-ins are most associated to date with another Colorado startup called One True Fan. One True Fan is much more game-like than the Meebo MiniBar, for better or for worse. Created by the team that sold MyBlogLog to Yahoo only to see it squandered there, One True Fan is most likely to be the geek set’s page-tracker of choice, especially if the team behind it is generous with access to user data.
Meebo, though, has raised nearly $40 million in venture capital, it has built out a huge network of late-adopting web Instant Messaging users and it places great emphasis on design and usability. It is also employing a strategy in this new tool that puts recommendation first and social sharing second. I like that.
Of course not everything Meebo touches turns to gold. The company lead an industry-wide charge against Facebook Connect this Spring, called XAuth. That effort appears to have moved little, the project mailing list hasn’t seen any discussion since August.
The new Meebo check in app will be available on Tuesday. I think it could prove successful.
