I am taking the Meebo Krafty Chat off of my blog. :( I did it primarily as a low tech. experiment to see how something like this would work in a hospital library for ref. chat. The nice thing is that I got to work with it off and for about three weeks and it has been fun.
For those of you who don't know what Meebo is, it is an "IM unifier." A one stop shop for all instant messaging.

There are a number of problems with instant messaging. There are a lot of options for people who like to chat, (skype, msn, AOL, Yahoo, Google Talk, Meetro, etc.) each with their own chat client to install on your computer. Meebo allows you to log into AOL, ICQ, MSN and Yahoo instant messaging services from their web page, eliminating the need to have an IM client on the user's computer.

The newly released "meebo me" (Aug. 2, 2006) librarians can sign up for an account and embed a version of Meebo chat on their web page. Chatters (those seeking reference help) are anonymous and librarians (registered users) have the ability store the chat logs for their training or statistical purposes.

Meebo me is a low tech way to offer chat ref. You can not "push" websites to users/other chatters (show a chat patron a specific website). However, depending on your users, your money, and how much use you get, you may not need a more expensive chat program that provides those bells and whistles.

Unfortunately while I was experimenting with meebo me as a method for providing low cost, low tech chat ref to a hospital library, my institution blocked Meebo :( My institution is not the only one who has done this. Meebo released Meebo repeater which allows users to set up their own proxies for accessing Meebo on Window PC. Because I like my job and do not want to get in trouble with the IT people and my institution, I have not touched repeater.

If your hospital allows you to access Meebo, it might be worth checking into as a way to offer cheap quick chat ref. It would be interesting to see if other hospitals (not academic medical centers) are offering chat ref and how it is being used. As I mentioned when I was a librarian for OhioLink's HealthSci chat, I did not see it getting used as much as it could have. Of course things could have changed since then.