/via +Eli Fennell
Reshared post from +PJ Rosenberg
Google May Be Close to Meebo Acquisition
According to the reliable sources, Google is involved in talks to acquire Meebo, the social platform that integrates cross-service chats as well as a social overlay for many websites. The price tag on the sale would be about $100 million.
Given that Meebo has plug-ins for several different browsers, the pick-up would definitely increase the amount of information Google would be able to collect about people’s browsing habits. Last September, Meebo announced that it had broadened its exposure to nearly half of all internet users in the United States at 92 million people. The persistent social bar that websites can use to interact with visitors is currently used by more than 8,000 sites.
Handling extensions is not just a question of power, though. Some extensions are very poorly written. Even some of Google's own, I suspect
+Jannik Lindquist no, I use extensions on the computers with enough power to handle it. On my aging computer, it acts laggy though – vanilla install with no addons.
Sad.
Could that be because you now use extensions? 🙂 If the answer is yes, I don't think it is fair to blame Google for adding bloat to Chrome
+Jannik Lindquist You're right, they haven't ruined a service. But they have made things more difficult – chrome, for example, is a lot heavier than the first chrome i tried.
Meebo is a nice service. They have a talented engineering team. If Google doesn't acquire it, somebody else will. I hope Google will keep Meebo independent.
Obviously, you could argue that they killed some of the products they bought for talent – but I don't think they have ever ruined an actual product
+Jannik Lindquist Good point. I'm not aware they have ever ruined an acquisition.
Do you have an example of Google ruining a service they bought, +Sophie Wrobel?
+Sophie Wrobel Google usually takes their time with acquisitions, lets them be their own thing… unless they were primarily about talent like the Milk team.