Bebo Adds Meebo In Belated Effort To Win Over Chat-starved Users

Bebo just launched Meebo's web-based instant messaging client across the social network and the company says a million messages have been sent already This is Bebo’s first step towards a much more real-time, interactive platform since they sold to AOL for $850 million in 2008. Right after that AOL let the platform languish, eventually shutting it down for tax purposes and selling it for about $10m to Criterion Capital Partners. True story. The new team of 20 or so employees has - surprise surprise - made the site profitable and it's now coming back in user numbers. Mike Arrington's recent interview with CTO Akash Garg suggested they'd be going for "Self expression, mobile and video will be strong components." Clearly IM and Meebo is part of that.