MakeUseOf » meebo

How To Set Up A Meebo Messenger Bar For Your Blog

Steve Campbell — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 23:31:45 +0000

Earlier this week, I gave you 8 Reasons to Use Online Meebo Instant Messenger. If you missed it, Meebo is an online instant messaging client that lets you connect to multiple networks from your browser. Well, the nice people over at Meebo have another great app out that I have yet to mention – the Meebo Bar.

The Meebo Bar is a toolbar that sits at the bottom of the screen and enables users to share stories, receive live updates, and chat with others – all while using your site. It adds a level of social interaction to your site that your users can appreciate.

In this article, I’m going to show you how to utilize the Meebo Bar and install it on your blog.

Step 1: Get the Meebo Messenger Bar

If you want to get the Meebo Bar for your website or blog, the first thing you need to do is download the bar from bar.meebo.com.

Just click Get It Now and you are taken to a signup page. Enter in your credentials (i.e. username, password, email) and click Continue to go to the next page.

On the next page you are asked for your site’s name and the URL. Fill in the information and click Continue one more time.

Now you should be at the Meebo Messenger Dashboard. Here you can select which platform you would like to install the bar on. Your choices are TypePad, WordPress (self hosted), Blogger, Movable Type, or Other.

Select the option that best describes your website and a set of instructions will unfold that will walk you through the installation. Depending on where you host your blog, these instructions will include anything from custom HTML, Javascript, or a downloadable plugin.

Once you copy your code or install your plugin, click Next–>. Congratulations, the bar should be on your site. Now it’s time to customize.

Note: If you don’t see your bar at first, don’t worry. I’ve noticed that on a new blog the bar doesn’t show up until you have at least one post or content up of some kind. Also, you can elect to make the bar only show up on your post pages instead of your home page.

Step 2: Customize Your Bar

If you click Go to my Button Settings, you are taken to the control panel. From here, you can customize your Meebo Messenger bar with all kinds of social icons, including Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, YouTube, and Flickr. Drag and drop the ones you want.

You can add a Digg button so people can digg your content and an RSS button so they can subscribe to your feed. Use a Meebo chat icon so users can IM their friends (or you!) from your site. You can even create custom buttons from the Overview page.

Once you have your bar looking the way you want, you can press the Push settings to live bar button and your bar will update on your site with all your new settings.

Step 3: Monitor Your Bar’s Stats

Once you have your bar set up, you can monitor how it is being used from the Stats page on the dashboard. The page tracks shares by type, by intention, button clicks, clicks by referrers, and page views.

This page can be very helpful if you want to test different buttons on your bar or want to see what arrangement works best for your blog.

Conclusion

If set up properly, the Meebo Bar can be a great addition to your blog. Shares of your content are bound to go up if you give users an easy way to distribute your content. If you give them a reason to stick around, total time spent on your site should go up as well. Utilize the power of Meebo messenger chat on your website or blog!

What do you think of the Meebo Bar? Will you be using it on your site? Do you use a different toolbar? Let us know in the comments!

8 Reasons To Use Online Meebo Instant Messenger

Steve Campbell — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 01:31:30 +0000

Over the years, we’ve grown accustomed to using instant messaging programs on our computers. We’ve offered you ways to enhance your instant messenger, and given you add-ons and skins for your IM client, but with the web 2.0 movement and the acceptance of social platforms like Facebook and MySpace, instant messaging has slowly been transitioning to the cloud.

The Meebo instant messenger was one of the 5 online instant messaging services that David covered last year here on MUO. The platform has since become widely popular and proven to be very useful for communicating with your contacts across the various networks and platforms with which you have an account.

In this article, I will cover 8 reasons why the Meebo instant messenger is an attractive instant messaging choice.

1. No Software To Install

The first impressive thing about Meebo is that you don’t have to install any software to use it. You just go to Meebo.com, sign on, and you can instantly message your friends/contacts right from the browser window.

If you create a Meebo account, you can sign into all of your IM accounts at once and chat in a single integrated buddylist. This also means that you can sign onto your Meebo instant messenger from any computer and have all of your settings intact.

2. Message Friends On All Of Your Networks

When we first covered Meebo back in 2006, it only had support for the major messengers like AIM and MSN. Now, Meebo has support for all the major networks, including AIM, Yahoo!, Windows Live, Google Talk, ICQ, and Jabber. It also has support for social networking platforms like Facebook, Myspace, and MyYearbook.

3. Get All The Features You Want

Meebo has a lot of the cool features that you would find with a standalone program like AIM. It allows you to set custom backgrounds and buddy icons, transfer files with people, and save your conversation history if needed. You can also launch applications like games and video chat.

4. The Meebo Notifier

If you don’t want to keep a browser window open the entire time you’re on Meebo, just check out the Meebo Notifier. The Meebo Notifier is a tray icon that allows you to stay signed into Meebo even when your browser is closed. It allows for automatic sign-on and it provides notifications when you receive a message or a buddy signs on or off.

You can even set up email notifications with the Meebo Notifier. If you receive an email on your Gmail, Yahoo!, Hotmail, or AIM accounts, it will notify you of your new message.

5. Take Meebo With You On Your Phone

You can access your Meebo account on your phone or mobile device. There are apps for both the iPhone and Android, but you can sign on from any wireless device by simply going to the website.

6. Create A Chat Room

With Meebo Rooms, you can join a chat room that interests you or create one of your own. You can make your rooms public or private, customize them, and enjoy your powers as a room moderator. You can join rooms based on your interests (e.g. movies).

7. Get The Firefox Extension

Use Firefox? You can install Meebo’s Firefox extension to get Meebo as a sidebar on your browser. From the sidebar you can access a smart buddylist and receive visual notifications when your friends message you. You can also share links and images by dragging them to your buddies while surfing the web.

8. Access the Meebo Instant Messenger On Restricted Computers

If you are on a computer that restricts instant messaging access, you can install Meebo Repeater. Meebo Repeater allows you to access Meebo on a restricted computer without using a third-party proxy. Just install the repeater on a computer that can access the web freely and it will bounce the signal so you can access Meebo securely.

So there are the 8 reasons to use Meebo Instant Messenger that I came up with. Take your communications online and keep track of all of your contacts from the cloud.

What do you think of Meebo? Do you use another online IM service? Leave your thoughts, ideas, and comments below.

How To Secure & Encrypt Your Instant Messaging Chats

Tim Watson — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 17:01:40 +0000

Everybody’s got secrets. Passwords, Social Security numbers, a safe combination, trade secrets…

Well, we can’t exactly condone corporate espionage (We’ve had enough of that, thank you very much!). However if you are, as an example, a newly-elected U.S. President, named… I don’t know… Barack (I just pulled that out of nowhere, honest!), with secrets to keep just between you and a friend or sweetie (let’s call her…um…Michelle) over IM, you’re likely going to want some form of encryption between the two of you.

There are several ways to secure instant messaging, but here are the two absolute easiest ways. The first is web-based, because we just adore web-apps.

You will likely have heard by now of Meebo, the instant-messaging app that only requires your browser. It’s handy for when you’re on, say, your brother’s computer (as I am right now), and you need to get at your contact list. While your IM passwords are always sent through encrypted, secure means, accessing the site via the secure HTTPS protocol like so encrypts your messages as well, allowing for tighter security.

As an alternative to Meebo, I suggest Imo.IM, which supports MySpace IM and Skype, forces HTTPS, and is Firefox-sidebar-friendly.

For the easiest and tightest security possible for Barack and Michelle, we’ll need total encryption of all messages and file transfers, between the two chatters.

Time for a favorite download of ours, the Pidgin client. You need not do anything fancy yet; Just download, install, and then run the program, adding your IM accounts with the wizard. Your friend must do the same, and then you both must install the Pidgin-Encryption Plugin. Then enable the plugin from Pidgin’s Tools menu (you may need to restart Pidgin for the plugin to be available and show up in the list).

I’m sure that you’re in a hurry to get to your spy games, but relax, we’re almost done! Go ahead and hit Pidgin’s Buddies menu to start a new IM conversation with your friend. Here’s the most important part. You see this padlock icon at the top of your IM window? You both must click on this to enable the encryption.

Pidgin will handle the exchanging of encryption keys, making the secure connection, and other nerdy stuff. Messages sent via this method are fully encrypted from your end to the other, including when routed through your IM network. I call it “Really Simple Security.”

Presented above are just two ways to encrypt and secure your instant messaging chit-chat over just about any IM network. We’re always open to other options, so please feel free to post a comment and clue us in on your favorite encryption method.

Firefox Addons to Make Meebo (Online Chat) Even Better

Jason K — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 23:01:15 +0000

Meebo is one of the most fully-featured methods to access instant messaging networks from the web ““ offering multi-protocol IM, chat rooms, and more. A number of features and scripts will also allow you to customize and enhance your experience. This article is mainly for Mozilla Firefox users – as it covers an extension exclusively for Firefox and a couple of Greasemonkey scripts.

The Meebo Firefox Extension

The Meebo Firefox extension adds some nifty features to Meebo. Improvements include “toaster” style notifications, a sidebar to access your buddy list, and auto-login. Unfortunately, this extension requires the Meebo tab to still be present, meaning that your conversations don’t carry on in the sidebar, but the actual Meebo tab.

The main addition of the extension is the sidebar, which allows you to see your buddy list in that sidebar ““ with no need to switch tabs. However, when you want to IM someone, clicking their name in the sidebar will automatically switch your Firefox tab back to Meebo ““ where you can chat there. This means that you can’t browse and chat at the same time, which is often inconvenient.

The second main addition of the extension are the toaster-style notifications, which tells you about certain events (can be chosen in the options panel) without having to be focused on the Firefox window.

Meebo’s Mobile Interface As A Sidebar

The mobile interface ““ while sub par to the actual interface, is a convenient way of accessing Meebo from the Firefox sidebar. It allows you to carry on conversations in the sidebar without switching tabs. However, the Firefox extension doesn’t work in tandem with this method ““ so you’re stuck between the Firefox addon that depends on the Meebo website interface, or the less than stellar meebo sidebar.

It displays recent messages from contacts (listed in order of recent messages), which you can click on to chat with, and also click back to the buddy list through an icon next to the input area. An apparent bug is the status picker, which makes it impossible to see the options without highlighting over them. Sound is absent.

To use this interface, create a Firefox bookmark for http://www.meebo.com/mobile/ and set it to load in the sidebar.

Greasemonkey Scripts

Change the Background Image

Meebo offers a selection of background images you can use (if you like product placements) through the preferences ““ appearance menu, but to use other images, you’ll need the customize meebo backgrounds Greasemonkey script. It allows you to choose a URL to grab a wallpaper from (sorry, no local options) and makes it the background for Meebo. Make sure you choose dark wallpaper (as link text appears in white for all themes) and the gray theme tends to look best with all images. (Note: I had to add http://www*.meebo.com/#* to the includes of the script to make it work).

Meebo Control Panel Script

This Greasemonkey script has a number of options that change Meebo features including hiding various elements of the page and adding the ability to sign on while invisible.

Unfortunately, it sticks an ugly blue link on top of the Meebo logo to access the “control panel” (presumably because it hasn’t been updated to keep up with Meebo’s design; the author states you can change line 91 of the script to reposition the link).

Do you use Meebo for IM? Maybe some other online instant messenger? If so, do you have any tips, tweaks, Greasemonkey scripts or any other hacks that you would like to share with the readers? Please share them in the comments!