Google is to shut down Meebo, the social toolbar it bought in June 2012, as it continues its focus on Google+.
Founded in 2005, the Meebo toolbar offered personalised content and displayed advertisements, with connections to Twitter and other social networks. It also offered an instant messaging application.
Meebo will be discontinued on June 6, as the team working on Meebo has decided to focus its resources on initiatives like the recently launched Google+ Sign-In, which includes interactive posts and over-the-air app installs from publisher websites, and Google+ plug-ins such as the +1 recommendation button, the Meebo team said on the Meebo website.
The Meebo Bar was launched “to bring community, engagement, and revenue to publisher sites,” and this will continue to be the focus of the team, it added.
Website publishers have been informed that after June 6, the Meebo Bar will stop loading on their sites.
The inactive Meebo code is recommended to be removed from the site as a general code housekeeping task.
The creation of new Meebo Bars has been disabled. Meebo Bar Dashboard and analytics will be available until June 30, though websites will not be able to change toolbar configurations after June 6.
In July last year, Google decided to shelve Google Talk Chatback which allowed websites to embed a widget to engage with their visitors.
