Back in April, Google announced that it would shutting down the Meebo Bar on June 6th. That date is here, so kiss it goodbye.
The message that appeared on the Meebo homepage, and remains there today, says:
Five years ago, we launched the Meebo Bar to bring community, engagement, and revenue to publisher sites.
As part of the Google team, this continues to be our focus, but we want to best serve mobile and desktop publishers moving forward. Therefore, we have decided to focus our resources on initiatives like the recently launched Google+ Sign-In (which includes interactive posts and over-the-air app installs) and the Google+ plug-ins.
This means we will retire the Meebo Bar, effective June 6, 2013.
Thank you for being a Meebo Bar publisher. We have truly appreciated the opportunity to serve you.
Sincerely,
Sandy, Seth, and the Meebo Team
Last year, it seemed like Google was going to start doing some interesting things with the Meebo bar to help drive engagement with Google+, and it could have worked. Essentially, having that notification box appear on various sites around the web would serve as a constant reminder that Google+ not only exists, but has some kind of engagement waiting to be checked by the user.
But that was before Google announced Google+ sign-in, and that’s the direction Google is going. So if you were a fan of the Meebo Bar, get used to it.