Google acquires Meetro, absolutely totally definitely doing IM now

by Jordan Running Aug 9th 2005

People have been talking about Google releasing their own IM software since, I think, the beginning of time, but internetnews.com is reporting that it's got to be what they're up to now. You see, this week Google is expected to announce its acquisition of Meetroduction, the company which makes Meetro, which is some sort of IM client that supports multiple protocols (e.g. AIM, Jabber, ICQ) and uses wi-fi mojo to find new buddies for you based on your physical location.

I can't help but wonder if something more is going on here, though. If Google just wanted an IM client, why wouldn't they have just started with Jabber or even Gaim? Meetro seems like an odd purchase, unless they've got something special in mind for that wi-fi mojo, and I sincerely hope they do. If anybody can make an IM client with a difference and actually get people to use it, it's Google.

Tags: aim, google, icq, im, instant+messaging, InstantMessaging, jabber, meetro

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

max said 9:39AM on 8-10-2005

Wonder if they are going to be doing anything with this and their recent acquisition of dodgeball.com, which seems a bit similar to me ...

Stuey said 11:40AM on 8-10-2005

Any Picasa user will have been introduced to Google's first cut at IM with the bundled "Hello" software.

I never used it except to transfer images to my Blogger account and I have never spoken with anyone that actually used it as an IM tool. Maybe this acqusition is the real deal.

Just waiting for them to get all of the pieces together including an on-line office productivity suite and then we can just turn on the PC and boot to an online Google operating system.

Bliss

Stuey

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