Google Retires Meebo Messenger

Acquire, Extinguish is easier than Embrace, Extend, Extinguish I suppose.

Google announced just recently to Meebo users that it will be retiring the Meebo messaging service.

Let’s compare this with Facebook and Microsoft’s ways of doing things, shall we?

Microsoft

Microsoft’s Strategy

Microsoft normally doesn’t even have the common courtesy of acquiring one to get rid of it for their gain – they simply accept it, extend it with their own stuff, then use incompatibility to drive users to them over the other thing. See also: Internet Explorer.

But you see, at least Microsoft keeps the old service somewhat running – and with additional features, too. Google in this case simply acquired the Meebo messaging service and nixed it, hardly a justifiable thing seeing as how they just dumped all the users and didn’t really bring anything new to the table.

Even better, Google keeps all the rest of the Meebo service – even promising to extend them according to the Dear John letter they sent out to Meebo users.

What Google really wanted in this case was control over the Meebo bar – fuck the messaging, users can use GMail for that. Microsoft at least embraces products in their entirety, usually, before integrating them if they run a competing service. Sheesh.

Facebook and Instagram

In what is a true game changer for acquisitions, Facebook’s Zuckerburg acquired Instagram all by himself – using a billion dollars without the Facebook board’s prior consent – and kept it running despite Facebook actively competing with via their own products.

But why? Simple – Facebook ads. Those are what make the money, so the Instagram service still runs to this day in all its glory – only with Facebook getting the ad revenue instead of Instagram.

Why didn’t Google just put ads in between messages in Meebo messenger? You tell me. They would have kept all those users who relied on the messaging aspect of Meebo, instead of just dropping them like it’s hot and letting them choose whether to use Google’s messaging solutions or turn to competitors.

Way to use the old noggin, Google.

That’s my analysis of Google’s acquisition of Meebo in a nutshell – any Meebo messenger users out there wanting to vent as well? Leave a comment!