Search Engine Journal

Google Acquiring Geo Aware Meetro Messaging and Social Networking?

Rumors are swirling that Google is planning the acquisition of Meetroduction, a geographically aware based instant messaging and social networking system. Meetro, the instant messaging system, allows users to take all of their current buddy lists with them, sporting compatibility with major IM networks such as AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo! and ICQ. Meetro’s “universal instant messaging” support continues to grow, with future support plans for networks such as MSN and Jabber. “The beauty of Meetro is the direct way in which you connect with people nearby.” said Paul Bragiel, CEO of Meetroduction. “Just run Meetro, double-click on a person and begin chatting immediately. It’s all realtime, which means you see and communicate with local people who are online right now.”

DevCity lends their opinion “Moving into instant messaging might seem like the next step for the net giant, after news, email and maps having an instant messaging application will broaden their base for Adsense (the Google ad network). Adsense might be more effective with instant messaging, since the session times are a lot longer than website visits, and there is not a lot to distract from advertising placed in messaging windows. Given that Meetro is location aware, this would provide an excellent way to further refine their targetted advertising. One question remaining, will the ads served be content sensitive (ie. from your conversations), and give rise to a Gmail-like controversy?”

Meetro sounds like a good fit for Google, which already owns the Hello instant messaging system. No official word from Google or Meetro yet on the buy out, but this Meetro software looks fairly interesting. “What we’re doing is combining traditional instant messaging and automatic local buddy finding into a single application, which means you can find cool local people with similar interests no matter where you are.” said Wendell Davis, President of Meetroduction. “Just moved to a new town or city? Drop a copy of Meetro onto your desktop computer and see what kind of people live in your neighborhood. Have some layover time at an airport? Crack open that laptop and run Meetro to see if any interesting people are hanging out. Meetro is real-time meets real life.”