WebProNews

Universal Music Group and instant messaging and group chat provider Meebo have partnered up to offer an interactive experience between users and musicians. If you are not familiar with Meebo, it allows users to sign in through other services like AIM, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, and MSN Web Messenger.

Universal and Meebo will provide Meebo users with ad-supported videos from a number of big-name artists. The deal kicks off with offerings from Kanye West, Ludacris, and The Killers. They will embed Meebo Rooms on official artist pages to enable real-time social interactions among fans. This way they can talk to each other, and in some cases, actually talk to the artists themselves. For example, Universal once used Meebo Rooms to coordinate a live chat with LL Cool J. They also used Meebo for an online listening party for a Kanye West album.

"Whether it's rock from The Killers or hip-hop from Kanye West, Meebo users are extremely passionate about their music and enjoy sharing that premium content en masse with their friends," said Martin Green, COO of Meebo. "The partnership between Meebo and UMG gives our users the ability to engage with thousands of videos from the world's largest music company."

"UMG's Video Syndication Program allows for music fans to access videos in fun and easy ways at affiliate websites," said Larry Baach, Senior Vice President, Global Digital Initiatives, Universal Music Group. "Meebo, our latest affiliate, has a unique inter-operative IM feature that has captured the interest of a young, extremely loyal, and very active user base. UMG is always working toward better consumer experiences of our artists' videos and we look forward to Meebo's continued and inventive focus on music video." Meebo's iPhone compatibliity should greatly enhance the sharing of content as well.

Over 300 musicians have used Meebo Rooms to interact with fans and promote albums since the site's launch in May of last year. Now that this deal with Universal has taken place, I would expect a great many more to follow suit.