Sources: Google Is Close to Buying Meebo

Google is in talks to acquire Meebo, according to two sources close to the situation.

The price for the company would be about $100 million, according to one of the sources.

Meebo CEO Seth Sternberg did not reply to requests for comment. A Google spokeswoman gave me the standard “We can’t comment on rumor or speculation” response.

Mountain View, Calif.-based Meebo has been around since 2005, when it was founded by Sternberg, Sandy Jen (who is CTO), and Elaine Wherry (now an adviser), who met at Stanford.

The company has dedicated the past seven years to all sorts of different social products and customers. First it was a Web-based instant message client (that’s still live as Meebo Messenger). Then it launched the Meebo Bar for publishers to add a persistent social sharing and advertising overlay on their sites. Currently, Meebo’s homepage is pushing a tool for users to “create an interest profile to get new and timely information about the things that matter to you.”

Meebo has raised quite a bit of funding over that time — more than $60 million, including a $25 million Series D round led by Khosla Ventures in 2010. Its other backers include Sequoia Capital and Draper Fisher Jurvetson.