Meebo Chat Rooms = Potential for Libraries

Meebo has just announced a new service: chat rooms where people can gather and talk, share resources, and more. You can name your chat rooms and rooms can be public or private.  You can also view content in the rooms from Flickr and YouTube and (hold your breath) it has something like cobrowsing--you can look at websites together.  It's no longer just simple pasting in of a URL as text--you get to actually see the website in the same window you're chatting in (though it can be kind of tiny--and you have to open it in a different window to click around).   Still.  Better than nothing.

See more in Meebo's announcement.  Here are the features, in their own words:

Unlike traditional chatrooms however, we’ve built in a feature that enables you to create a room, add it to you buddylist (to receive notifications even when you’re not in the room), and here’s the kicker… embed the same room on your personal profiles and websites, just like meebo me!

What else have we got in store you ask? :) Media! We listened to you carefully, brought you all in for user studies, and called many more of you on the phone. We know that lots of you love watching YouTube, MetaCafe, and browsing through Flickr. We’ve incorporated the ability to watch your favorite URLs with your friends, all at once! Got a great link that you found on Digg? Paste it in your room and voila, it’s now shared.

People from all fields have seized onto this.   Rooms range from the official Popular Mechanics room about Alternative Fuel Vehicles to 80s Dance Party.  Librarians too are naturally excited; the potential for instruction, meetings, and virtual reference are obvious).  Darlene Fichter and Aaron Schmidt are absolutely giddy.  You can search for rooms, and libraries are already taking advantage of this (we're starting to move faster than molasses--hurrah!). 

Look at couple of rooms that library people have created to test run the service: Library Society of the World and Library Fun.  Go here to create your own room.  Enjoy!