Hybrid Google+/Meebo Bar Spotted In The Wild

Earlier this year Google acquired Meebo, a company known for their javascript based framed social bars and chat applications. The Meebo Bar quickly became the most promising product as websites could leverage the lower portion of user’s screen to help push shares, gain more ad space, and entice users to consume more content.

TheNextWeb spotted a revamped Meebo bar that surfaced on TVguide.com program pages. The new bar is framed from the Meebo.com domain and has a much more Google+ infused look. From left to right the new bar features:

• An ad (BestBuy in this case)
• A large Google +1 button
• TV Guide Feature button (What’s Hot)/li>
• TV Guide Feature button (What’s Hot)/li>
• TV Guide Feature button (Add To Watchlist)/li>
• TV Guide Feature button (New Tonight)/li>
• TV Guide Feature button (What’s Hot)/li>
• A Google + widget with notifications, profile picture, share button & a large Google+ button/li>

By clicking on the share button, a large Google+ themed graphic appears making sharing easy:

What’s interesting about the bar is the right side portion. Essentially the right fifth of the bar replicates the new Google account experience – nearly the same amount given to the ads in the bar. Of course the new Google-owned version of Meebo has all other social sharing stripped from the bar — undoubtedly a major bummer for most webmasters. In fact, Google +1’s are exponentially lower than other shares on the site, yet now take up much more space with the new Meebo bar.

Will this new Google+/Meebo bar be a boon for webmasters? Only time will tell, but we’d put our money on ‘n’o if it’s a Google+ exclusive sharing product.

H/T TheNextWeb