Content sharing platform Meebo is almost finished raising US$25 million in a fourth round of funding, AllThingsD reported Tuesday. Once the current round of funding is closed, the California-based company will have a total of $60 million.

Meebo places ad-supported toolbars on content sites (such as Mediaweek.com, Maxim.com and AllThingsD), which stay in position at the bottom of the screen as users scroll down the site's page, paidContent explained. Buttons on the toolbar can allow users to share content on the page through social media sites, like Twitter and Facebook. The firm also offers users different ways for users to access chats through a Web portal.

Image: Meebo.com The Meebo Bar has a 1 percent click-through rate, and the average Meebo user spends 60 seconds with an ad, according to AllThingsD.

Currently Meebo reaches 180 million unique users, double the amount it reached a year ago. CEO Seth Sternberg told AllThingsD that 87 percent of its advertisers last year came back in 2010, doubling their budgets, on average.

Users can login to meebo.com, where they can access their instant messenger account and multiple social platforms "to communicate and share with the friends that matter the most!" the site states.

News stories should stop publishing old, tired stories, according to Slate writer Jack Shafer. In an tongue-in-cheek article in Slate, he writes: "According to the joke, the prisoners at the local penitentiary have become so familiar with the jokes they tell one another that they've enumerated them and can crack themselves up by merely shouting out favorites by number," he stated. When a new inmate yells out 37 and gets no response, he asks why, and gets the answer, "It's all in the telling."

He said he thought of the joke while reading the Washington Post and The New York Times about an FBI computer system that is two years behind schedule and US$100 million over budget, with the headlines "Report criticizes FBI on computer project" and "FBI Computer System Is Late and Over Budget, Report Says." "Government computer systems that are woefully behind schedule and ruinously over budget have become such a news staple that it would be a wonder if editors haven't already numbered the stories, and others like it, for their newsroom convenience," Shafer adds in the article. He also suggests editors should colour-code generic stories so readers can easily skip them.

Last week Twitter announced the creation of its Tweet Button, created to perform a similar function as the "Retweet Button," which allows users to efficiently share their favourite links through Twitter. However, the Retweet button was created by TweetMeme, a third party company. Twitter announced that it will be phasing out the Retweet button in favour of the new Tweet Button.

Publishers can go onto Twitter and customise the tweet button onto their own websites. Once the newspaper has added the button, readers can share their favorite news stories via Twitter without leaving the original Web page. Instead they click on the "tweet button," which opens a small Twitter box with the shortened link.

Metro US, the publisher of free commuter dailies in Boston, New York and Philadelphia, entered into a cross-platform content sharing partnership with MTV2 last week, Editor & Publisher reported yesterday.

As a part of the deal, Metro will deliver the latest national and international news stories including politics, business and sports as a "News Break" every hour from 3-9 a.m. every day on MTV2's AMTV as its northeast content partner. It will also feature the MTV2 programming details, along with top programmes of the week, in its Entertainment section and TV Watch list, according to a press release posted on EarthTimes.org last week.

"Like Metro, MTV is a globally recognized brand for the young media consumer, and there is a powerful correlation between what MTV2 viewers and Metro readers value in news and entertainment," Tony Metcalf, Editor in Chief at Metro, stated in the press release.