vote for meebo

**UPDATE** Voting closes at noon PST today! Get your votes in!

Vote for Meebo! Click here

We need your help! Here’s the deal:
Meebo is a finalist for the Webware 100, and voting closes this week.

We were Webware 100 winners last year, but this year is a little bit different. We have been placed into the “Social Networking and Publishing” category, and against all the stiff competition there, we’re going to need every last vote we can muster from our awesome, loyal, kind, smart Meebo users.

Excessive flattery aside, if you have a second, go to the voting website, select Meebo, and click the vote button.

Vote early. Vote often. (We have no idea what the voting rules are, so if you know something we don’t, post it in the comments!)

Thank you!

The Meebo team

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strategery

One thing that always struck me about President Obama—the guy knows how to turn a phrase. His oratorical prowess, especially in comparison to his notoriously word-mangling predecessor, is impressive and inspiring to a word junkie like me.

President Bush’s gaffes were so blatant, frequent, and comical that on sites like the Random Bush Quote Generator and DubyaSpeak, “misunderestimate” and “You’re working hard to put food on your family” are just the tip of the iceberg. But it was a quote from President Obama in the second presidential debate last year that got me really thinking about how easy it is to misuse words. Obama dropped the mixed metaphor, green behind the ears, which was oh-so-close to two very common sayings, but not quite right.

So, in honor of presidential word flubs, both Democratic and Republican, here is my lengthy-but-by-no-means-exhaustive list of silly things people say.

• pass mustard or cut the muster – mixing military and dietary references.
• a mute point – if you make an argument in the woods, what if no one is there to hear it?
• for all intensive purposes – sometimes the reasons are very, very weighty, I suppose.
• french benefits – health care in Europe is top notch!
• there/their/they’re, its/it’s, and your/you’re – misusing these terms is just annoying.
• take a different tact – not bad advice, but far from the nautical origins of the phrase.
• affect, effect, and even affekt – the first two can be both nouns and verbs, but they aren’t interchangeable.
• out of the frying pan and into the fryer – well, I guess a fryer would be pretty hot, too.
• chester drawers – my buddy chet’s underpants?
• long-windowed explanations – soliloquies with a view.
• the bus stops here – now arriving at the White House?
• unchartered territory – the bus doesn’t stop there, though.
• a zero-sum gain – (yea, this is so common that in the first draft I put the correct term “zero-sum game.” Like I said, soooo easy to slip. )
• the throws of passion – my old roommate really liked the WCW, so I guess that counts.
• it takes two to tangle – another WCW reference?
• rot iron fence – guess that fence didn’t last long.

What’s your biggest pet peeve when it comes to language? Are there some common mistakes people make in your language (English or otherwise)?

Greg

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Meebo Meetup in Tokyo!

Konnichiwa! I am in Tokyo for a few days soaking in all things Japanese. So far, I’ve ordered dinner through a vending machine, sampled beers at a local izakaya and experienced my own Lost in Translation moment in the middle of Shibuya crossing. Sometimes the best way to get new ideas is to immerse yourself in a completely new environment.

As the Director of Product Management for Meebo, I work with our engineers and designers to figure out what new things we’re going to build and what it will look like. We like to think about our users across the globe when launching new features, so since I’m in Tokyo for a week, I would love to meet up with our Japanese Meebo users. Come meet me at Hobgoblin Pub in Shibuya this Thursday, April 23, between 6:00 – 8:00pm. Just look for the Chinese guy …in the Meebo t-shirt. I’ll also have a limited number of Meebo t-shirts and stickers to give away too.

I’d love to meet you and find out how you use Meebo. See you soon!
Chris

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token antipodean

Since moving from Australia to join Meebo in the U.S. in January, people have been most curious about what the biggest cultural adjustment has been. My answer keeps changing as I become used to certain aspects of the American way and new challenges arise. It recently occurred to me that I struggle to respond to the greeting: “Wassup?” with any real credibility. For some reason my reflex is to attempt a pseudo-American impersonation and I invariably end up sounding more Irish than anything else. I’ve resolved to stick with the safe haven of “Hey” for the time being.

Regional salutations aside, my first few months here have actually been less of an upheaval than I’d anticipated. San Franciscans are an extraordinarily welcoming folk. I’m told this is because virtually everyone is from somewhere else, so they’re no strangers to being strangers. It also helps that the Bay Area climate is quite similar to that of my native Sydney (my desktop weather widgets for the two cities are currently neck-and-neck) and of course, there was no significant language barrier to overcome. Sure, my accent and idioms still occasionally inject confusion into conversation (people don’t know what the strewth I’m talking about when I say things like “capsicum”, “chook”, “bowser”, “doona”, “pash”, “ute”, “K-Rudd”, “she’s cactus” or … “strewth”) but my lifelong exposure to U.S. TV and films bridges the gaps.

Naturally, feelings of homesickness percolate from time to time but I find music to be an excellent remedy. Listening to the soundtrack of your life can evoke wonderfully visceral memories of distant friends and cherished places. I’m reminded of the last time I lived overseas for an extended period—over a decade ago, just before the digital music revolution. Back then I lugged around a Walkman the size of ten iPods and a stack of audio cassettes that lost their appeal within weeks. Staying in touch entailed expensive phone calls and the occasional postcard. This experience gives me enormous appreciation for the advances in technology that allow me to carry my entire music collection in my pocket and chat with family and friends at practically any time of day. Geographical detachment becomes almost irrelevant when everyone you know is just an IM away.

And hey, I’m sure I’ll be managing a perfectly competent “Yo dude, wassup yourself, homeskillet?” before too long.

I’d be fascinated to hear how you stay connected with your friends? Suggestions for ingratiating oneself into American culture would also be more than welcome.

Cheers,

Jayce

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professional women’s soccer 2.0

Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS) kicked off its inaugural season last week with a game between the LA Sol and the Washington Freedom. I welcome women’s professional soccer back with a huge cheer, but my celebration is a little bittersweet.

I was lucky enough to grow up playing soccer comfortably in the wake of the real pioneers of the sport. For as long as I can remember I idolized all the national team players and decorated my room with as many pictures as I could find: their first World Cup win in China, Mia Hamm & Kristine Lilly playing for UNC, Tisha Venturini’s backflip when the US beat China for the 1996 Olympic gold medal, I framed Mia Hamm’s poem, and the list goes on.

I had read about how Mia and Kristine had to play with their older brothers because there were no girls teams when they were kids, but I grew up with all girls rec teams, and travel teams, and premier teams, and Olympic Development Programs and National Tournaments. My mother’s constant refrain, “you’re very lucky – We didn’t have soccer when I was growing up,” fell on deaf ears.

And of course I was one of the 80,000 at the Meadowlands for the opening ceremonies of the 1999 World Cup. Therefore I took it completely for granted that there should be a Women’s Professional Soccer league.The Final of the 1999 World Cup was the largest women’s sporting event in history. Why wouldn’t a women’s professional league be able to sustain itself?

The Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA) was launched as I headed into my freshman year of college, which was perfect timing for me. I couldn’t imagine anything else I wanted to do besides play soccer. I was by no means the next Mia Hamm but I figured I could play for a couple years after college while I figured out what to do next.

Well, to my surprise I had caught up with the front end of the curve. People were not quite ready for professional women’s soccer. And to be honest, I wasn’t either. I neither attended a game nor watched any on TV. I figured the hundreds of thousands of other fans would take care of ticket sales and TV ratings, and I should just focus on playing.

To my surprise WUSA folded after the 2003 season without any concrete talks of revival. Now, 6 years and a large dose of reality later, I think I finally get it. The WPS is counting on me and everyone like me to bring the highest level of women’s soccer back to the US for good. Women’s professional team sports are still in their infancy and they desperately need our support.

And my mother’s periodic reminders of how far the sport has come in one generation no longer go unappreciated. I believe it depends on us to push the sport to the next level and be able to say to our daughters, “you’re lucky—we didn’t have Professional Women’s Soccer in the US when I was growing up.” I deeply commend those that have made the WPS a reality and can’t wait to see as many games as possible this year.

I’m going to the next FC Gold home game on April 26th, check out the schedule for a game near you!

Mo

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why I love the philadelphia phillies

April 5th marks a day that I look forward to every year – Opening Night of the Major League Baseball season. In spite of the fact that I’m a pretty big tech geek at heart, I’ve also always been a huge sports fan. And even though I never officially called Philadelphia home, my family’s roots there meant that I was born and raised a Philly fan when it comes to all things athletic.

The really great thing about Philadelphia sports is the fans. Though the city is infamously remembered as the city who booed Santa Claus, the fans have remained incredibly loyal through the years. You’ve never seen a city with more spirit and passion.

If you’re a baseball fan you probably know the Phillies won their first championship in 28 years during the 2008 season, finally breaking the curse of William Penn and giving all of us fans the satisfaction of having stuck by them all this time. Sure the celebration was a bit raucous and there were a few faux-pas, but I wouldn’t expect anything less from my favorite town in all the world.

As the 2009 season gets started, my heart will be back in Philly and I’ll be wishing I had a cheesesteak in hand from Geno’s and a soft pretzel from those guys outside Citizens Bank Park who sell them out of shopping carts (if you think this sounds crazy, you’ve probably never been to Philadelphia). Since I call California home these days, though, you’ll probably just find me at a sports bar somewhere with my friends here, donning my Phillies gear, and cheering the boys in red on to victory over those pesky Atlanta Braves.

Oh, and if you’re wondering what the second greatest thing is about the Phillies, it would have to be the Phillie Phanatic – pretty much the best mascot in all of professional sports!! Go Phillies!!

Sara

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spring forward

I don’t think I’ve ever looked forward to spring with as much anticipation as I have this year! When I became the third member of Meebo’s New York satellite office in August of last year, not only was I new to Meebo but I was new to the Big Apple as well. Being from the south—Greenville, South Carolina—I’m not accustomed to harsh winters filled with piercing winds, snow/slush, freezing temperatures and sunsets at 3:00 pm. However, it did give me an opportunity to accessorize—new boots, new hats or earmuffs, gloves, and scarves—winters in New York might be brutal compared to the 40-50 degree southern winters I’m used to, but if you’re walking a mile to work in the snow every day you have to look fashionable! Yet, somehow, I mustered through this winter with one thought repeating over and over in my head—“I can’t wait for spring, I can’t wait for spring, I can’t wait for spring.”

The month of March in New York was a weather roller coaster. The biggest snow storm of the winter hit NYC on March 2 (the massive snow storm even hit the south). With close to a foot of snow on the ground, flights were cancelled, schools were forced to close for the first time since 2004, and we were in a winter wonderland when spring was right around the corner. Five days later, on the following Saturday, I looked out my window expecting more dreadfully cold weather, yet, to my surprise, saw throngs of people wearing tank tops, t-shirts, and sunglasses, basking in the near 70 degree weather! A beautiful day and the people were coming out of their apartments like bears waking up from winter hibernation, emerging from their caves! Unfortunately, the warm weather was not here to stay.

Throughout March, the weather has teased us city dwellers with glimpses of spring only to return to rainy, chilly, dreary weather. On March 18th, the temperature was 65 degrees! The streets of New York were filled with people daring to shed their scarves and jackets; coming up with excuses to leave work solely to take advantage of the foretaste of spring. True to form, the following day it returned to 30-some degrees and raining. And, how did NYC actually bring in the first day of spring? With snow of course!

Although the weather has had its ups and downs, I know that when spring has come and is here to stay the treacherous winter will have been worth the wait! From what I’ve heard (and seen in the brief summer I spent here last year), the spring brings a multitude of opportunities for fun things to do in the city—play Frisbee in Central Park, kayak on the Hudson river or go shopping in Soho! Everything in the city becomes more inviting and enticing—for example, all the restaurants, bars, and cafes throw open their doors and windows to encourage you to sit back, relax, and relish the warm weather. I’m most looking forward to walking around and getting to know my new city! I can hardly wait!

I’d love to hear what you look forward to most about spring-time!

Chelsea

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where’s the blue?

First off, if you want to get your old Meebo back, just click the “Change back to blue” link on the left of your screen, just below your IM account settings and buddy icon.

In case you missed my last blog post (or you already forgot about it) what you are seeing on Meebo today is the second half of our experiment with a new advertising unit, called a “takeover.”

This is our first attempt at this sort of thing, and we know it’s really different, so we are trying to get as much feedback from you as we can about it. That way we get to always keep Meebo free, and hopefully have ads that aren’t annoying and awful like the rest of the stuff out there.

Please let us know what you think in the comments!

I have copied my post from last week below in case you are seeing this for the first time.

Thanks again for your support and feedback!

Seth

_________________________

Ok, by now you’re probably wondering “what the heck happened to Meebo today??”

Before I explain, in case you’re wondering, yes, you can get your old Meebo back. Just click on the “Change back to blue” link over on the left, right under your account settings.

Now, the explanation:

As you all know, Meebo has been developing different kinds of advertising for awhile. Getting advertising “right” inside of Meebo is really important. We always want Meebo to be a free service, which is why exploring revenue streams like advertising is a focus of ours. This lets us add new features that you all ask for, like support for Facebook and MySpace IM.

But of course there’ll be some tension with ads. In general, ads around the internet pretty much suck. It seems like everywhere you go there’s a flashing, annoying banner, or worse, some ad that actually blocks you from the page you’re trying to read, yuck!

Meebo holds itself to a really high standard for its products, and our treatment of ads is no different. Instead of just throwing standard banner ads into Meebo, we wanted to integrate ads as a feature… hopefully so well that they could be fun! And great news, turns out ads inside Meebo have been a real success. Not only have we gotten positive responses from all of you, but our advertisers are very happy too!

So now you’re seeing Meebo’s next shot at a new advertising unit for us. It’s called the “takeover.” Because it’s so all-encompassing, it will only run once in a while. If you use MySpace or YouTube, you’ve probably seen something very similar…every so often the front screen and parts of the overall site change to promote a particular brand. Of course, just like you can close the ad at the bottom of the screen by clicking the down arrow on the bar, you can close the takeover unit by clicking the “Change Back to Blue” link over on the left of the screen, just below your account information.

As always, we rely heavily on your feedback. We rarely get things 100% right the first time (and when we do, a lot of that’s luck). So as always, please provide feedback and let us know what you think. Did we strike a good balance between not disturbing your use of Meebo, while acknowledging the need to run ads? Is the ad too distracting? What tweaks would you do to make it way better? Let us know!

Seth

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meebo on your desktop redux

And one more time, here’s our blog post about the Meebo Notifier!

Download the new Meebo Notifier
(Currently Windows Only…)

We have a surprise for you.

We know you’re excited (it’s like waiting for the UPS man to drop off a package)… What is it, what is it you ask?!?

We’re proud to announce the release of the Meebo Notifier! (Download it here)

What’s it do? The Meebo Notifier connects you to Meebo and gives you visual notifications for new messages in your Windows taskbar, without having to keep a browser open! (You’ll have to wait a bit longer, Mac folks…)

You can log into Meebo automatically when your computer starts up and—with a single click—open a browser directly to your Meebo session. How awesome is that?

Lots of you have been asking for a notifier for a long time, and we’re really happy to finally give it to you. Try it out and let us know what you think! It’s a small Windows download that will install in only a few seconds.

Want a demo (of course you do)? See one here.

Enjoy!

-Renaud

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