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Google officially acquiring social startup Meebo

Once just an instant messaging startup, Meebo has been officially picked up by Google.
Written by Rachel King, Contributor

Social networking startup Meebois moving onto a bigger stage now that it has been acquired by Google.

The Meebo team confirmed the merger on its blog on Monday afternoon, which promptly went down as soon as the news hit.

How Meebo will be integrated into the Google world remains to be seen. Meebo's most popular product as of late, the Meebo Bar, has the potential for improving the current Google bar at the top or serving as a way to integrate Google's other social services (Google+ and Google Chat, among others) on other media and entertainment sites across the Internet.

The Meebo Bar also incorporates ads, which Google might then use to combine all of the above.

Once just a startup focusing on instant messaging when it launched more than seven years ago, Meebo boasts on its website that it now reaches "approximately half of the U.S. internet population." With Google providing some backup power, it will have the potential to reach a lot more. The key here might be to maintain Meebo's existing identity while integrating Google services in a careful manner.

Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed yet, but All Things D previously reported in May that the price tag could have been as much as $100 million.

There's also no word on how many of the Meebo team members will be moved into the Google fold, but most of them shouldn't have to go far considering both are based in Mountain View, California.

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