The Meebo bar, the noted product from the social media publishing company founded in 2005, will be discontinued on Thursday as the team focuses its full attention on Google+ products. Meebo was acquired by Google in June 2012.
As part of its continued pursuit of “focus” Google is shutting down five more products. That includes Google Video, iGoogle, Google Mini, Google Talk Chatback and its Symbian Search App, the company announced in a blog post Tuesday afternoon.
Google announced Monday that it has purchased Meebo, the social media and advertising company, to add a team of engineers and some publisher-friendly social tools to its Google+ efforts. Meebo’s CEO, CTO and engineers from its product team will remain with Google after the completed purchase.
You can “check in” to locations in the real world, and now Meebo is bringing the same idea to the web. The company is launching a new version of its website toolbar that allows users to check into different sites and follow other users.
A new open platform called XAuth is being released Monday by Meebo, with the support of Google, Microsoft, MySpace, Yahoo, JanRain, Disqus, and Gigya. XAuth detects whether or not a user is logged into web services elsewhere so a publisher can prominently display those preferred sites.