Huh, so if Meebo is already "dead" why did Google buy Meebo? Google bought Meebo last week!
Surely the conclusion from this is that Google bought Meebo FOR the Meebo bar, not that the Meebo bar has failed. The Meebo bar product is the one they're continuing!
The fact that Google believes it may be able to derive value from the Meebo bar product does not mean that Meebo was in a position to derive similar value at a palatable level of risk.
Google has a precedent of buying up startups that "discover" and conquer a new piece of mainstream media web sites.
They bought Feedburner way back in 2007 because they'd come to own RSS feeds at almost all the major publishers.
Now they're buying Meebo because that will let them own the toolbar across the bottom of lots of major publishers...where they will certainly start surfacing Google + bullcrap that no one wants to see.
I assumed that wasn't the case as in the original comment thread people reported that Meebo had been letting staff go because of the acquisition, although I guess that could mean they're only interested in a small portion of the team. My mistake for discounting that possibility.
They let go people from the sales team. Execs, engineering and product were all hired (assuming they made it through the standard Google hiring process).
Surely the conclusion from this is that Google bought Meebo FOR the Meebo bar, not that the Meebo bar has failed. The Meebo bar product is the one they're continuing!