Social Networking Watch: News on the Social Networking and Social Media Industry

Michael and Xochi Birch on Starting Bebo

BBC.CO.UK - June 10 - Michael and Xochi Birch are a husband-and-wife team of entrepreneurs who are best known for setting up Bebo. They later sold it to AOL for £850M in 2008. The couple met in London, where they worked as computer programmers. Despite their background they were "complete amateurs" when it came to internet start-ups. They began their venture into online start-ups in 1999. They believe they were lucky because unlike other established online companies they still had nothing to lose. Their first real success came when they launched Birthday Alarm, a website which alerts users to people's birthdays. By 2002 they had 2M members and were making $10,000 a month from the site. "We went from earning $10,000 a month to $10,000 a day. Overnight, by flipping a switch," says Xochi. Facebook and MySpace were just becoming popular and the couple decided to use their profits to create their own versions. Their first platform, called Ringo, attracted 400K users before they sold it. But it was their second creation, Bebo, that became a global hit.

See full article at BBC

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Birch Returns To Bebo

TECH CRUNCH - Dec 9 - Michael Birch  has re-joined Bebo as a strategic advisor, along with investing in the social network which he co-founded with his wife Xochi in early 2005 before selling it to AOL in 2008 for $850M. In his new role, Birch will provide Bebo with his “expertise and eye for product innovation”. He’ll be working alongside CEO Adam Levin. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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Bebo: Can The New Owners Reverse Its Ailing Fortunes?

TELEGRAPH.CO.UK - Dec 7 - Bebo was off-loaded by AOL earlier this year to Criterion Capital Partners for ~$10M, despite paying $850M for it only two years earlier. Five months on, Adam Levin, Bebo’s new CEO is brimming with confidence that he can turn Bebo back into a popular social network, through a mixture of new tools, original content and social games. Bebo currently has 117M registered users globally. However, less than 12M are active. The site will make money from display advertising and a percentage share of virtual credits bought to play certain games. FULL ARTICLE @ THE TELEGRAPH

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Bebo Launches Meebo IM

TECH CRUNCH - Nov 10 - Bebo just launched Meebo’s web-based instant messaging client across the social network and according to Bebo ~1M messages have been sent already. This is Bebo’s first step towards a much more real-time, interactive platform since they sold to AOL for $850M in 2008. Right after that AOL let the platform languish, shutting it down for tax purposes and selling it for ~ $10m to Criterion Capital Partners. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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Bebo Is Kicking In The Social-networking Market

USA TODAY - Oct 28 - "We're here to stay, and grow," says Adam Levin, who took over as Bebo CEO in June after his merchant bank, Criterion Capital Partners, bought Bebo from AOL for an undisclosed sum. Some analysts peg the value of the deal at $10M. Since Levin took the helm, Bebo has added 1.5M to 2M registered users, putting it at 117M.  Bebo continues to gain younger customers. Why? The site lets users dress up their profile pages as they like, with plenty of color and pictures. Facebook, by contrast, offers a formulaic profile page. FULL ARTICLE @ USA TODAY

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Bebo’s Back

TECH CRUNCH - Sep 14 - Bebo was sold to AOL for $850M in 2008. Then AOL, under new management, shut it down for tax purposes, selling it for next to nothing to Criterion Capital Partners. AOL CEO Tim Armstrong called the whole thing a huge distraction. A whole new team is in place, and with 20 or so employees the site is profitable and growing with 6 millionish active users. So what next? “Self expression, mobile and video will be strong components,” says CTO Akash Garg. But beyond that he won’t elaborate. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

Mark Brooks: Bravo!

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Is Bebo Ready To Bounce Back?

BBC.CO.UK - July 14 - Adam Levin, the San Francisco-based investor is now the proud owner of social network Bebo after buying it from AOL last month. Levin won't reveal the price, but analysts estimate that he paid something between $5M and $10M - a fraction of the  $850M AOL spent on it in 2008. The challenge will be to do what AOL failed to do - ensure that Bebo survives and grows in a social networking market dominated by Facebook. In 2008, Bebo said it had ~40M members and was the second most popular social network in the UK, as well as #3 in the US. But a big decline in popularity means it now attracts ~12M monthly unique users worldwide, compared to Facebook's 400M members. Bebo's strategy, Levin said, will not be to take on bigger rivals. Instead, it plans to continue as a niche player in the market, by offering something a bit different. "On Facebook, people are already complaining that their parents are on the site. On Bebo, there might be fewer of their friends, but they'll be more selective." FULL ARTICLE @ BBC.CO.UK

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Criterion Capital Partners Acquires Bebo From AOL

TECH CRUNCH - June 17 - The rumors are true: hedge fund Criterion Capital Partners is indeed the buyer of Bebo. AOL is offloading Bebo for less than $10M (other media are reporting a purchase price of around $2.5 million). Criterion Capital Partners will take over Bebo’s global operations immediately and retain its San Francisco-based headquarters. Exact terms of the deal are not being disclosed by either party, but AOL CEO Tim Armstrong sent a note to all employees this morning that suggests our earlier reports that the ability to offset almost the whole sum it paid for Bebo as a tax loss played a big role are correct. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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AOL To Sell Bebo For $10 Million

TECH CRUNCH - June 16 - AOL is close to selling Bebo to an investor group. The price? $10M or less. Rumors of the acquisition first surfaced this morning, and the buyer may be Criterion Capital Partners. That’s just a bit less than the $850M AOL paid for the social network in 2008. And as decimated as Bebo is, it’s almost certainly worth more than $10M. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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Quarter of 8-12-year-olds On Facebook, MySpace Or Bebo

GUARDIAN.CO.UK - Mar 26 - Young UK internet users creating social network profiles despite official age limit, annual Ofcom survey finds. A quarter of UK internet users aged 8 - 12 had profiles on Facebook, Bebo or MySpace last year, although the lowest minimum age set on any of the sites is 13. Among parents of those eight- to 12-year-olds who had social networking profiles, 17% said they were unaware what their children were doing. Of the 83% of parents who said they did know what their kids were up to on the net, 9 out of 10 check what their children are up to. FULL ARTICLE @ GUARDIAN.CO.UK

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AOL Looks To Sell Bebo And ICQ

MASHABLE - Dec 14 - As the Wall Street Journal reports, AOL is in talks to sell ICQ, the once prominent — but now archaic — instant messaging service. The Wall Street Journal also says that Bebo, the social network AOL acquired in 2008 for $850M, may be on the block. In the ensuing 20 months, Bebo hasn’t quite turned out to be the profit-center AOL hoped it would be. Although traffic was up after a redesign in February, Bebo has continued to languish as European users migrate to Facebook, like the rest of the world. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE

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Value Of Social Networks

GUARDIAN.CO.UK -- Aug 3 -- ITV paid £120M for Friends Reunited - with another £55M to be delivered four years later. Now it appears that ITV overpaid colossally for the site: it may offload Friends Reunited for £15M. In July '05, Rupert Murdoch had demonstrated his enthusiasm for the internet by paying $580M (then £331M) for MySpace. That deal looks less clever today, with MySpace shedding workers and finding itself overtaken by Facebook. AOL paid $850M for Bebo in March 2008. But like MySpace, Bebo's performance figures are falling away. Even Facebook is difficult to value. When Microsoft bought a 1.6% stake in 2007, the $240M price tag indicated a value of $15bn. But by May this year, when the Russian group Digital Sky Technologies invested $200M for a 2% stake through preference shares, the putative value had fallen by a third to $10bn. FULL ARTICLE @ GUARDIAN.CO.UK

Mark Brooks: Anyone considering buying a social network should first and foremost consider the integrity of the connections between users.  Are they real connections between real friends and acquaintances. Or is the SNS allowing or encouraging friend collecting. The sites that sway towards high integrity (Facebook, Friendster, Ning), and high utility (LinkedIn, Hoovers Connect, Xing) connections will be around and creating value, and increasing in value in 5 years time. The rest, will fall.

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AOL Appoints New CEO Of Bebo

CNET NEWS -- July 29 -- AOL has promoted Stephane Panier to the role of president at Bebo, which it acquired last year for $850m. Panier, who joined AOL in January after six years at Google, had previously been serving as COO of Bebo. FULL ARTICLE @ CNET NEWS

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Bebo Partners With Samsung And Endemol For Music Show

NEW MEDIA AGE -- May 27 -- Bebo has partnered with mobile phone company Samsung and production company Endemol to create an online music show. Beat will take the form of a daily magazine show and will launch on the social network on 19 June. FULL ARTICLE @ NEW MEDIA AGE

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The Fastest Growing Social Sites

MASHABLE -- Apr 20 -- According to Nielsen Online, these are some notable developments from March in social networking:

- Ning is currently the 2nd fastest growing social networking property. Its traffic is up 283% YOY, and it now reaches a total of 5.6 million people in the US.
- Bebo has grown 148% in the past year, and now reaches more than 6.1 million people in the US. Bebo is known mostly for being big overseas, so the next few months will tell if this was a one-time pop thanks to AIM integration or a continued trend.
- LinkedIn continues to be one of the quickest growing social sites and has more than doubled its size in the past year. It now reaches better than 15.8 million people in the US, ranking it 3rd in total size behind Facebook and MySpace.

- The “big three” stories remain much the same: Twitter is now growing at a mind-boggling 2,565% and reached more than 13 million people in the US during March. Facebook saw 69.1 million visitors in March and continues to extend its lead over MySpace, which saw only 55.9 million.

FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE 

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Bebo Launches In India

THE FINANCIAL -- Mar 19 --  AOL People Networks has announced the launch of Bebo in India, and marked its entry into the Indian market with Hindi entertainment TV channel, REAL. The launch in India follows launches in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and US Latino.  FULL ARTICLE @ FINANCIALCHANNEL.COM

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Bebo Extends Reach Throughout Europe

BUSINESS WIRE -- Mar 16 -- AOL announced the launch of Bebo in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Netherlands. Bebo’s new media partners, including AlloCiné, RTL’s Clipfish, Telecom Italia owned Yalp!, Diagonal View and Preview Networks’ Filmtrailer will be incorporated in Bebo’s Open Media platform. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WIRE

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Bebo Open Mobile Drives 44% Page View Growth

THE FINANCIAL -- Mar 4 --  Bebo's January mobile page views grew by 44% and text messaging traffic grew by 13% month on month following the launch of Bebo Open Mobile. Bebo Open Mobile is a global program for mobile operators, handset manufacturers and mobile software developers. FULL ARTICLE @ FINCHANNEL.COM

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