Meebo adds ads

So Meebo, in the incessant quest for monetization that plagues all Web2.0 startups, has decided to start showing ads that cover their whole website. It seems to actually have worked, according to TechCrunch. This is really surprising to me, since I usually hate those massive fullpage ads all over the internet (CollegeHumor is often a good example of this), but Meebo seems to have gotten something right here. FTA (example comments):

“I read your message about why the background changed and everything, and I definitely agree with what you’re saying. (Especially the sucky, flashy ads that cover your page you’re trying to view). With that said, nice work! I actually really like the way the ad is incorporated into the background, and slightly opaque. It’s not too distracting, and if the ads are helping you guys out, by all means, keep doing it this way! : )”

This is really interesting to me, because advertisements are an extremely difficult thing to integrate into a website, especially nowadays. Now users have adblock and are accustomed to ads all over the place, so a 1% clickthrough rate on only semi-targeted ads is really really impressive.

(via TechCrunch and Meebo Blog)