Meebo’s had a rough week. Not only did it get slapped around on this site, where I posted instructions for an easy way to banish the hated Meebo bar, but it also lost its account with Boston.com the same day.
So it did something pretty substantive in response. After I and others complained on Tuesday about there not being an obvious way to banish its bar, it made one and implemented it on Thursday, announcing it last night.
Meebo launched a minimize button on the right side of the our bar today. We’ve heard your feedback on UX. This is step one. cc @mat
— Danny Bernstein (@bernsteind) April 27, 2012
I’ve been pretty hard on Meebo, so I’m going to give some credit where it’s due. It is genuinely trying to make its bar less crappy and give it some value for readers as well as publishers. And in response to a pretty tough story, Danny Bernstein, Meebo’s, er, VP of business development dove headfirst into the comments and took some punches, again and again. (And on his birthday, no less.) He also called me to talk. It probably wasn’t a fun 48 hours for that guy.
Look, I still don’t care for the bar, and I still don’t think “hide” is enough. You ought to be able to turn it off completely with one click. But good for Meebo for making changes in response to some tough feedback and legitimately trying to get it right.