I noticed a new menu bar sitting above the load bar when I visited TMZ, and I learned they are using a company called Meebo to help with their social networking. The Meebo Bar allows you to share the page, Like it on Facebook, share it on Twitter, and/or chat with your friends on Facebook and AIM.
One clever feature that isn’t as obvious can be seen when you mouse over one of the images or videos. A message appears telling you to “drag to share,” and when you drag this image/video, another full menu appears allowing you to “drop” the image in the place you’d like to share the story – Facebook, Twitter, Buzz, Yahoo, or email. It seems to be a very cool way to easily share articles.
The one downside I noticed off the bat is that the site seems to load much more slowly than before the Meebo tools were added, and it’s a bit annoying to have the page loading for a few seconds after arriving.
For those of you who are developing your domain names, it’s a good idea to look at the features offered on popular websites like TMZ.com to see what types of plugins, widgets, and add-ons you can put on your sites. I don’t think the Meebo social networking tools would be worth adding on my blog, but I could potentially find a use for it on one or more of my sites.
