Google acquires Meebo — will we see adverts in Google+?

In the latest round of acquisitions to hit the tech scene, chat service Meebo has announced that it will soon be part of Google. Meebo — which started out in IM and now focuses their efforts on their social media and sharing bar — posted about the acquisition on their blog in a flurry of exclamation marks and excitement:

We are happy to announce that Meebo has entered into an agreement to be acquired by Google!

For more than seven years we’ve been helping publishers find deeper relationships with their users and to make their sites more social and engaging. Together with Google, we’re super jazzed to roll up our sleeves and get cracking on even bigger and better ways to help users and website owners alike.

We’ve had a blast building Meebo so far and we’re really excited to start the next leg of our journey.

Thank you all for coming along for the ride!

The Next Web reports that Meebo will join the Google+ team, and theorises that the search giant made the offer because of the fact that Meebo has successfully managed to monetise messaging. Not that there is much chatting going on in Google+… but the way Meebo has been able to integrate advertising and chat is probably what made the company stand out.

Its Meebo bar allows publishers and advertisers to incorporate engagement opportunities (through social media widgets) and view multimedia content straight from the bar — thus creating brand awareness and sharing without interrupting the users’ experience or requiring that they leave the website. Meebo currently has around 100 million monthly active users — the company estimates it reaches half of the US internet population.

There’s no official word yet on how much Meebo will cost the big G, but general speculation is around the US$100-million mark.