• November 14, 2008

Meebo is partnering with Hearst Magazines Digital Media, a unit of Hearst Magazines, enabling visitors to Hearst Magazines Web sites to use Meebo instant messaging and chat.

The move allows Hearst--whose properties include Seventeen.com and PopularMechanics.com--to increase revenue, user engagement, and time spent on the Web sites.

To launch the partnership, "Seventeen" integrated Meebo Rooms into the "Style Stars 2008" online feature to spur conversation around celebrity fashion at Seventeen.com. The magazine handpicked its most stylish fashion icons of the year for the December/January print issue, and created a social media experience for its readers. Site visitors at Seventeen.com will be able to browse photos, read articles, and watch exclusive video of their favorite celebrities while chatting in real time with members of the Seventeen.com community.

"Popular Mechanics" is also using Meebo to increase community throughout their site. In a recent online article utilizing Meebo Rooms, readers generated more than 20,000 lines of conversation in the first 48 hours. Over the course of a week, the Meebo Room was loaded more than 70,000 times by over 30,000 unique visitors. In addition, readers embedded the co-branded chat rooms on their own social networking profiles and blogs to further spread the conversation that originated at PopularMechanics.com.--Tanya Irwin