Google Agrees to Buy Social Media Company Meebo

Google has agreed to buy the Silicon Valley-based instant messaging and advertising firm Meebo, to boost its social networking service Google+. The acquisition was officially announced yesterday by both the companies.

Meebo was started in 2005, originally as a social messaging tool which allows users to send instant messages across multiple platforms like Facebook, Google Talk, MSN, AOL and others. It also lets publishers and advertisers promote their products in an interactive manner. Meebo is used by about 100 million people in the U.S. for its impressive features.

Meebo wrote on its blog, “For more than seven years we’ve been helping publishers find deeper relationships with their users and to make their sites more social and engaging. Together with Google, we’re super jazzed to roll up our sleeves and get cracking on even bigger and better ways to help users and website owners alike.”

Google+, since its launch about a year ago, has 170 million users in its network. However, it is not able been able to compete with the 900 million frequent users of Facebook till date. Google has said that the Meebo team would join the Google+ group to help create innovative ways for social interaction on the Web.

Google said in a statement, “We are always looking for better ways to help users share content and connect across the Web, just as they do in real life. With the Meebo’s team expertise in social publisher tools, we believe they will be a great fit with the Google Plus team.”

The financial terms of the acquisition have not yet been disclosed.