Google has moved to enhance its Google+ social media site with the purchase of Meebo, an instant messaging and communications company that will bring a host of tools and capabilities and users to Google.

The terms of the deal have so far not been announced although numbers in the $100 million range have been bandied about by TechCrunch and others. Meebo, a seven year old company has raised $70 million in funding over the course of its history. From the post on the Meebo blog it appears that much if not all of its team will be moving over to Google.

A key feature will be the Meebo Bar, a feature that permits users to chat that sits on a number of web pages. This enables advertisers to sit just below an audience of prospective customers. Meebo has a number of other capabilities that will likely find their way to Google+ such as the ability to customize content streams to meet your interests.

The addition of the Meebo audience, estimated at approximately 100 million users, will also be a big boost if many come over to Google +, which has an estimated 170 million users, still a far cry from rival Facebook’s almost 1 billion users.

Google+ has been growing steadily since it was introduced but when we talk to or visit sports teams they only have a focus on Facebook. Rarely do I see a site that also promotes Google+ as well, although this is occurring more frequently. Hopefully this and additional efforts by Google will fix that issue since with more competition I believe we will see better apps and web pages.