Does anyone actually like Meebo Rooms?
Ordinarily, I only talk about things on this blog that I like. When I come across a cool video, a nifty web utility, or a slick piece of software, I like to talk about how great it is. I don’t usually complain about something I encounter, unless it’s something that means a lot to me.
That said; I don’t really care for Meebo Rooms.
Granted, I don’t have to care about Meebo Rooms. I can just leave it there, down on the bottom of my Meebo chat screen, and ignore the functionality completely. But it just seems so anti-web 2.0, there’s just something about it I feel compelled to comment on. I don’t really know how to explain it. Or, maybe I do.
Consider Twitter. Twitter is the direction the web is moving these days: dispersion. Each person exists in their own little world, and content is brought to them via RSS, SMS, IM, email, etc. Friends create content, and the content is distributed to each connected member’s miniature universe via the various channels of the internet. The web world is dispersed, and that’s how everything is moving.
Chat rooms — and especially video chat rooms, like Meebo Rooms — are not web 2.0. They are web 1.0. They are a part of the 90s (well, video isn’t, honestly, but the rest of my point stands). Gathering people in one place to interact isn’t how things are done these days. And that’s part of why I don’t like Meebo Rooms. It’s anti-web 2.0.
Plus, all it’s managed to do is make an already somewhat slow-moving system move even slower. Slow to the point that all day today, every time I have received an IM from somebody on one service, two or more of my other IM services automagically disconnect. It’s extremely irritating, especially when I have multiple conversations going on multiple channels. I expect that to get cleared up as things get more stable, but since it’s occurring due to the implementation of a whole new set of features that I don’t want, it’s a bit frustrating.
Somebody out there must like the new Rooms, right?
My awesome family at Mahoney State Park this past summer. From L to R: me; my oldest son, Caleb; baby Harlyn peeking out from behind mommy's shoulder; my wife, Amanda; my son Alex.
Hey Nathaniel,
I think your take is really interesting. At meebo, our mission is to connect people live on the Web. We don’t really care where it happens, we just want people to connect.
Our take, and this is just our opinion, is that there is a serious dispersion element to this as well – and that will only continue to grow over time.
Any meebo room can be embedded on a third party site so that the conversation (and media) that starts at meebo can exist anywhere you might hang out on the Web. Let’s say you start a nerdflood room inside meebo for the folks at our site – you could then embed that conversation here, on your social network profile, etc.
I’m a HUGE baseball fan – love the San Francisco Giants. I have a blog, fansite, etc. I can take the Giants room at meebo and embed it – plus other Giants fan can disperse the conversation as well.
Here’s a great Web 2.0 element – we’re not going crazy for meebo accounts. To chat in our meebo room, you don’t need a meebo account. You don’t even have to have ever heard of meebo. Just visit the site to start chatting. It’s that simple.
Well, Nathaniel, I gotta get back to it. Stay in touch – can’t wait to hear from you.
Danny
Meebo sure has made a serious mistake here!
I don’t like chat rooms, the only reason i use Meebo was to chat with friends, not some random strangers. They should of made new IM features!
It saddens me that they sold out to commerce in web1.0 style. I respected these guys for innovation, but this is just a total rip off.
This is just rubbish – and it doesn’t even work.