The end of instant messaging (as we know it)

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Flixster's toolbar was created by Meebo, a Silicon Valley startup launched in 2005. Over the next six months, Meebo will roll out similar Web-based IM toolbars for 19 other sites looking to increase community engagement.

Meebo Chief Executive Seth Sternberg says the pitch is easy for Web publishers looking to keep users on their sites longer: "The interesting thing about live chat is that it forces the user to focus persistently," he says. "If a site's [average engagement time] is three minutes, we can move it to six."

Eventually, Flixster and other Meebo partner sites will embed advertising inside the IM toolbar, or in text conversations themselves. Sternberg says this will present a new opportunity to advertise in IM via a new target. A Flixster user, for example, might be able to view a trailer for a movie inside the chat window itself, all the while exchanging short messages about it with a pal.

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It's about time Web companies breathe new life into IM, says Eric Druckenmiller, vice-president of media at interactive marketing agency Deep Focus. "If you look at the distribution of IM, it dwarfs [many other channels of online advertising], but marketers haven't paid attention to it since the late '90s," he says. But a recent project where Deep Focus placed ads for Havaianas sandals on Meebo's own IM site convinced him that the channel has more potential for advertising.

When Microsoft unveiled the new chat functions on its Windows Live pages, it was in some ways playing catch-up to its biggest rivals, Google and Yahoo!. In the past two years, as those sites have vied to become one-stop destinations for online communities, they have included IM tools throughout their pages. The idea is to make everything from e-mail to spreadsheets more collaborative and open — and ultimately, more addictive and profitable.

Yahoo's aggressive IM branding
Google offers chat capability in its Google Talk desktop application, in Gmail Chat, within such collaborative Google Docs like the word processor, and in widgets that users can install on their custom iGoogle home pages.

"Talk is about choice and we want people to have instant messaging with them where they need it," says Seth Demsey, product manager for Google Talk. On Nov. 12 the company announced a new feature for Gmail Chat: free videoconferencing.

Yahoo has 116 million users of its standalone IM application, compared with Google Talk's 6 million. Yahoo has been more aggressive at introducing advertising to IM. It uses display ads and contextual ads, such as offering links to a Yahoo map if users enter an address.

Yahoo also employs branded entertainment — a mini-Coca-Cola soccer game is embedded in the IM window — and branded virtual goods, such as a customized background theme around a musical act or sports team.