• by Gavin O'Malley , June 26, 2008

Instant-message site Meebo today is expected to announce partnerships with social network application developers Buddy Media, Commagere Ventures, FrozenBear, K-Factor Media, Mesmo TV, Rockstarted, Spicerack Media, Trippert Labs and Unit 501.

The deals allow Meebo to syndicate its API-powered embedded chat rooms--Meebo Rooms--inside their social applications.

Combined with existing partners--(fluff)Friends, RockYou, TheBroth, and WaterCooler, five of the top 15 Facebook developers have now integrated Meebo Rooms into their applications, according to Adonomics.

Popular applications that integrate Meebo Rooms include Chat, (fluff)Friends, Horoscopes, Mental Blocks, Vampires and Zombies.

"Meebo adds value to these apps in a very clear way," said Daniel Bernstein, director of business development, Meebo. "Developers use our API to integrate chat easier than ever before."

Since the company announced the capability for developers to integrate Meebo Rooms into Facebook applications in December 2007, close to 8 million unique Facebook users have visited Meebo Rooms on application canvas pages, including 2.5 million in the last 30 days--amounting to over 100 million user minutes spent engaged with partner applications.

In May, the company provided instant messaging and group chat to over 35 million people at Meebo.com and via partner sites across the Web.

The average person at Meebo.com spends over two hours on the site per day, and Meebo handles conversations consisting of over 5 billion messages per month. In addition, visitors to Meebo Rooms average over 10 minutes in a room per session.

Meebo was rumored to have recently hired investment bank Montgomery & Co. to represent them in a new fund-raising round, which would have valued the company at $250 million.

Earlier this month, Meebo detailed new ad programs, built around the premise of engagement and sharing, to help monetize the company's 35 million unique monthly users. Partners will be sharing ad revenue derived from the new in-room ads, called SparkAds, running in Meebo Rooms.

Still, the core of Meebo's ad offerings is its MediaBar, a standard leaderboard appearing at the bottom of a user's screen that expands to a 900 x 400 unit to deliver video, games, applications, news and other types of interactive content.

For the new ad programs, Meebo attracted a group of blue-chip brands as launch partners including Havaianas, Sony Electronics, Universal Pictures and the band Weezer.