AIM

Instant messaging and chat application provider Meebo is announcing a variety of social networking partnerships today. The companies announced today include Buddy Media, Commagere Ventures, FrozenBear, K-Factor Media, Mesmo TV, Rockstarted, Spicerack Media, Trippert Labs, and Unit 501. The partnership brings syndication to the Meebo Rooms product inside of the various social applications.

The company reports 100 million user minutes spent engaged with partner applications, the average person at Meebo.com spends over two hours on the site per day, and Meebo handles conversations consisting of over 5 billion messages per month.

Earlier this month Meebo launched their Meebo Marketing Platform include SparkAds. Check out our interview with Meebo founder Seth Sternberg.

AOL is announcing the launch of their Open Voice API today. The Open Voice API will work with the AIM Call Out service which allows users of AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) to call out worldwide. I guess AIM Call Out could be considered a Skype competitor though it's not as feature rich or as polished an application.

The new API will allow developers to create applications that build on the AIM Call Out functionality and use devices including softphones and mobile devices with WiFi capabilities. Steve Murphy, Senior Vice President, AOL said, "We’re building on the popularity of the Open AIM program and opening up the AIM Call Out platform, enabling open standards voice communication services to proliferate in the marketplace." Check out the developer guidelines for the API.

Both AOL Call Out and Skype's "Skype Out" service charge per minute and offer monthly unlimited plans.

eBuddy just released stats at 3GSM that they have reached the five million mark with their mobile IM product. This is five million on the mobile side, not the desktop side which makes this even more powerful. I can't wait until mobile catches up in the U.S. Of course wireless carriers won't cut their data rates so who knows whether it will ever happen. 

Mobile Director Jan-Joost Kraal, "Instant Messaging on mobile phones is expanding rapidly. Over the last six months, we have seen an astonishing monthly growth from 5 to 33 percent. Since the introduction of this service, 5 million mobile users have sent and received close to 1 billion messages through our platform. Over 400.000 daily logins underline the market’s receptiveness for our Mobile IM services."

Check out my interview with eBuddy.

Well as the AlwaysOn conference comes to an end (my wrapup will come late tonight), I had a chance to chat with Seth Sternberg. Seth is the CEO of Meebo and a really brilliant guy. He is also pretty well connected from the number of handshakes, nods and waves during our discussion! Have a listen inside. Also, Meebo is hiring programmers and developers.

Meebo hits the 500,000th user mark. Pretty cool for one of the companies that I think rocks.