chat Archive

Note: This story was embargoed for 2pm Eastern but as suspected Techcrunch posted early.

Instant messaging and chat application provider Meebo is announcing the integration of Facebook and MySpace chat into the Meebo web client today. The concept is that you can now chat inside of Meebo with both the traditional instant messenger clients plus the social network chat clients as well. It’s a smart move for Meebo as the longer they can keep users inside their application, the more they can push ads via their marketing platform.

I have to admit I’ve never used MySpace chat and everytime I try the Facebook chat, no one replies when I ping them. I am still happy in my AIM/Skype world. I have wrestled with installing any chat service on my mobile as sometimes it’s nice to not be immediately accessible for a few minutes.

Meebo noted in their release that they are the first web app to support both Facebook and MySpace chat applications. Online chat aggregator eBuddy already supports MySpace on the web client and Facebook on the mobile client. So I can only assume that Meebo means first in supporting both networks simultaneously.

Meebo currently self-reports a userbase of over 40 million (not sure of active users). Check out our interview with Meebo CEO Seth Sternberg.

Editor’s note: eBuddy is a CN sponsor.

Back in September we broke the news about eBuddy adding Facebook chat to their mobile application and that they had 7 million mobile app downloads to-date. Today eBuddy has announced that they have hit the 10 million mobile app downloads mark.

Matt Marshall has a good overview of where eBuddy is relative to the other players in the market. Matt notes, "eBuddy’s progress comes even as other young players stumble. Competitor Trutap, which also let people chat across different IM services, and another mobile service, EQO, have both stumbled recently. Trutap, of the UK, just let go almost 80 percent of its staff after its main venture backer, Tudor Ventures, withdrew its support and the company failed to raise another round of capital, and EQO also recently failed to raise funding, and has cut two-thirds of its staff."

eBuddy currently reports 3 million monthly mobile users. When I started CN two years ago, it seemed like eBuddy and Meebo were direct competitors. Today it seems they are both succeeding but taking different paths to their respective success. eBuddy has raised $11.5 million in venture capital to-date.

Editor’s note: eBuddy is a CN sponsor.

Interactive congolmerate CBS has announced the launch of “social viewing rooms” today. These rooms combine videos (from CBS) plus chat and polls. So basically if you remember IRC and slap a video window on the side, you have this new concept from CBS. The idea is smart, the longer people remain within the CBS framework, the more ads they can serve up and generate more interaction with their users.

The social media rooms would have more appeal if stars from the shows were in the chats while the shows played live. Currently in the “lounge” are a variety of CBS shows including: soap operas, Survivor, CSI, Beverly Hills 90210 pilot (the original), The Love Boat and Melrose Place. One might think that a show like “The Big Bang Theory” would be perfect for this. I guess people would rather chat about how Kimberly killed the people in the apartment building!

Intel is the initial sponsor for the social media rooms. CBS notes regarding the sponsorship, “the Social Viewing Rooms let technology leaders such as Intel weave its brand into the center of the entertainment experience with a unique combination of user engagement and brand integration.”

Hollywood Reporter believes that reality shows stand to benefit the most from these social media rooms. I’d tend to agree as long as the rooms match up with when the shows are on live. If not live, then it’s the same as chatting on IRC or any web-based chat service.

During my trip to the west coast, I sat down with Seesmic CEO Loic LeMeur for a demo of the new Seesmic mobile application. I was able to grab an exclusive video demo with Loic and I’ve embedded the demo below. The Seesmic mobile application allows Seesmic users to record videos, watch videos and reply to videos in the normal Seesmic message board threaded fashion utilized on the Seesmic Web site.

The service works on the Nokia N95 and other Symbian mobile devices. I asked LeMeur to compare the application to live mobile video streaming applications Kyte, Flixwagon and Qik. LeMeur explained that the Seesmic mobile application isn’t a live streaming application but rather a way to interact in the video conversation. When a video is uploaded via the mobile, users can select to have a message sent to their Twitter account information their friends of their new video upload.

If you are interested in learning more about Seesmic, check out my video interview with LeMeur from earlier this month. Here’s the video demo:

This morning I was using the mobile version of eBuddy and I noticed that Facebook Chat was listed on the menu. This was the first time I saw Facebook listed in the options. I spoke with eBuddy CEO Jan-Joost Rueb to confirm that the Facebook Chat listing was new. Basically he confirmed that Facebook Chat is in a soft-launch period and that they will publicly announce the launch in the coming weeks. Rueb also noted that J2ME and Ajax versions will be updated soon.

While I had Rueb on the line (he’s in Amsterdam) he shared that eBuddy mobile has been downloaded over 7 million times and is beating Google Maps in downloads (based on GetJar rankings). Once eBuddy publicly announces the Facebook Chat launch, this should help increase their total downloads and usage time even further.

AOL has announced the launch of a new flash-based instant messaging application today. AIM Express allows you to do everything you can in the normal AIM client inside of a Web browser. In my testing this morning, I found it to work very well. As you chat with more people, tabs show up on the top of the application so you can jump back and forth. Everything is contained inside of the one Flash application.

I wonder if they could port this to a desktop app using Adobe AIR as it would allow everything to be contained inside the app instead of opening windows for each current chat. The new AIM Express also allows for text messaging using SMS for friends that are offline.

AOL also announced the launch of an updated Windows Mobile client. The new client includes ads from AOL’s Platform-A division.

Other companies in the Web IM and chat space include current CN sponsor eBuddy and Meebo.

I stumbled across a new online chat application that brings together people and language translation. MeGlobe calls itself an instant messaging application but I’d argue that they offer a public chat service rather than a traditional IM offering. MeGlobe offers a public directory so you can find other people who speak the language you are interested in. It’s great for discovery in that regard.

MeGlobe offers real-time translation into: English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Greek, Swedish, Arabic, Japanese, Korean and Chinese Traditional and Simplified.

Josh Lowensohn reviewed MeGlobe on Webware and compared it to Meebo in that it opens a window with a chat interface. Josh tested it with French-English and I tested it with German-English and it did a good job. As Josh notes, if you change your language during a chat, MeGlobe will translate the history into the currently selected language.

MeGlobe isn’t connected to any of the major IM networks which will hurt their user adoption. I could see MeGlobe partnering with Meebo or eBuddy to inject the MeGlobe translation service into the already powerful IM services. On the flip side, your current buddies on any IM service probably already speak the same language you do.

Here’s the company’s demo video:

Editor’s note: eBuddy is a current CN sponsor.