Auren Hoffman reveals some Meebo growth stats on his weblog:

i heard that yesterday they had over 300,000 logins ... in one day! during that day they sent almost 9 million messages (implying almost 18 million carried). wow.

this is from a site that hasn't yet done anything to market itself and has no viral component (yet). what does this mean? it means that Meebo has a compelling product that people really love. i mean really love.

rumor is that Meebo's traffic is growing at over 10%/week. if that's true then Meebo should reach a hundred million messages carried in about 19 weeks (which would be May 31). will they do it? stay tuned and let's check back then....

Meebo lets users log into multiple instant messenger networks through a browser based interface. Like the popular client based meta-messenger trillian, they don't have permission from the IM networks to tap into their network. But, if google has its way, it looks like IM software developers won't need permission to tap into their network, atleast.

While we're talking about IM, Userplane should certainly be mentioned, as they have a very differentiated strategy of powering web based chat for other very popular sites.

And finally, not to be outdone, AOL is planning to leverage their massive AIM network into a full blown social network.