3 ms·

Google buys Meebo

20 points by patrickaljord 14y ago

pbreit 14y ago
Wow, I thought Meebo was on track for much more than a $100 million buyout. It has raised $70 million and apparently has a very large, active user base after all. I wonder what happened?
- earl 14y ago
  1 - there's very little money in chat, meebo's original product; 2 - meebo has been trying to make money via their behavioral targeting dataset: they see browsing activity of users via sites that embed their javascript and also through the plugins they get people to install in their browsers. It's a similar dataset to clearspring, which also does bt stuff. In 2011, Meebo bought mindset media which does psychometrics (eg [1]), and I'd bet the play is to marry psychometric targeting with meebo's bt dataset. 2a - the above may be meebo's value to google: experience building, selling, and a client list for psychometric targeting. This is another targeting layer that would be sold in Google+ alongside dems targeting. 3 - for the sake of the employees, I hope meebo's VCs didn't have preferred participation; that will cut up the $30mm even further. Though I bet Google will take care of the employees. [1] http://www.mindset-media.com/marketers/profile/ http://www.mindset-media.com/marketers/profile/
- mrchess 14y ago
  Strategic exit I'm guessing. I think they have been struggling to find a core product for a while now. The meebo bar was essentially a pivot after popularity of meebo messenger started to decline.
  - ChuckMcM 14y ago
    That seems likely. I doubt there was any employee participation on this exit. Google has a pretty good track record of giving 'RSU's[1] to the key employees in an acquisition which can make it worthwhile. [1] RSU - Restricted Stock Unit. Unlike a stock 'option' where there is a price per share which is set at the current market price and then is only valuable if the stock goes 'up', an RSU a convertible instrument that has a nominal face value of 1.0 share of Google Stock. However it has attached to it a scaling factor which is generally tied to performance. The scaling factor can go to 0 if performance is poor or as high as 3 if performance is stellar generally. This would be similar to an 'earnout' although its more about how the employee does at the company rather than how the acquired assets perform.
    - heretohelp 14y ago
      Meebo was about to lose most of their remaining (they'd already lost a few) key employees to better companies anyway. A Google buyout with incentives to keep the employees around was really the only way this was going to end well.
deleted 14y ago
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jcampbell1 14y ago
I hope the founders have cached something out of this, or are getting an earn out. When you raise $70, and sell for $100, the founders shares are worthless.

20 points by patrickaljord 14y ago

Wow, I thought Meebo was on track for much more than a $100 million buyout. It has raised $70 million and apparently has a very large, active user base after all. I wonder what happened?

earl 14y ago
1 - there's very little money in chat, meebo's original product; 2 - meebo has been trying to make money via their behavioral targeting dataset: they see browsing activity of users via sites that embed their javascript and also through the plugins they get people to install in their browsers. It's a similar dataset to clearspring, which also does bt stuff. In 2011, Meebo bought mindset media which does psychometrics (eg [1]), and I'd bet the play is to marry psychometric targeting with meebo's bt dataset. 2a - the above may be meebo's value to google: experience building, selling, and a client list for psychometric targeting. This is another targeting layer that would be sold in Google+ alongside dems targeting. 3 - for the sake of the employees, I hope meebo's VCs didn't have preferred participation; that will cut up the $30mm even further. Though I bet Google will take care of the employees. [1] http://www.mindset-media.com/marketers/profile/ http://www.mindset-media.com/marketers/profile/
mrchess 14y ago
Strategic exit I'm guessing. I think they have been struggling to find a core product for a while now. The meebo bar was essentially a pivot after popularity of meebo messenger started to decline.
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  That seems likely. I doubt there was any employee participation on this exit. Google has a pretty good track record of giving 'RSU's[1] to the key employees in an acquisition which can make it worthwhile. [1] RSU - Restricted Stock Unit. Unlike a stock 'option' where there is a price per share which is set at the current market price and then is only valuable if the stock goes 'up', an RSU a convertible instrument that has a nominal face value of 1.0 share of Google Stock. However it has attached to it a scaling factor which is generally tied to performance. The scaling factor can go to 0 if performance is poor or as high as 3 if performance is stellar generally. This would be similar to an 'earnout' although its more about how the employee does at the company rather than how the acquired assets perform.
  - heretohelp 14y ago
    Meebo was about to lose most of their remaining (they'd already lost a few) key employees to better companies anyway. A Google buyout with incentives to keep the employees around was really the only way this was going to end well.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

jcampbell1 14y ago

I hope the founders have cached something out of this, or are getting an earn out. When you raise $70, and sell for $100, the founders shares are worthless.