Bebo closing down?

Sizzler

AOL paid $850 million for Bebo and only now the penny has dropped that it aint really going to make them any money, DOH! Will you miss it?

Can't say Im surprised and given the ridiculous sums that were paid for Facebook & Twitter too I won't be surprised if they go the same way. I can't see advertising alone getting their money back so they will have to do something.

Would you pay to use Twitter or Facebook, seriously?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/social-media/7562278/AOL-prepares-to-shut-down-Bebo.html

wrote:

In an email to Bebo’s 40 remaining worldwide employees yesterday, Jon Brod, head of AOL’s start up acquisition and investment unit, said: “As we evaluate our portfolio of brands against our strategy, it is clear that social networking is a space with heavy competition, and where scale defines success.

“Bebo, unfortunately, is a business that has been declining and, as a result, would require significant investment in order to compete in the competitive social networking space. AOL is not in a position at this time to further fund and support Bebo in pursuing a turnaround in social networking.”

The British-born company is in the process of scouting out any potential buyers for the beleaguered social network, but The Telegraph understands that Stephane Panier, global head of Bebo, has been in conversations with both Brod and AOL’s chief executive, Tim Armstrong over the last six months about abandoning the network altogether rather than selling it.

Bebo’s UK office, based in central London, is to be closed at the end of this month, after all 30 employees were either made redundant or have subsequently taken the redundancy package.

A source close to Bebo’s UK operations said they had been expecting the announcement as user figures had dropped from nearly 40 million per month worldwide, to just 12 million as of February 2010.

They also said that AOL needed to take the blame for the Bebo’s reversal in fortunes.

“The company was not that good at listening to user feedback, doing market research or beta testing. Too many resources were put into the AIM [AOL Instant Messenger] integration and not enough into keeping Bebo bug free and keeping its core features up to date.”

AOL plans to have its strategic evaluation of Bebo's future completed by the end of May 2010.

Bebo, as well as MySpace, has fallen prey to the growing popularity of Facebook, which currently has more than 400 million users worldwide.

AOL, which spun off from Time Warner last December, bought the site for $850 million in 2008 from British-born Michael Birch and his partner Xochi. Joanna Shields, the then chief executive of Bebo, who has recently been hired by Facebook to head up its European sales business, engineered the deal and let AOL last May. After the sale went through, Jeff Bewkes, Time Warner’s chief executive admitted that the company had overpaid.

Since Armstrong, Google’s former head of US advertising sales, took over as chairman and chief executive in March last year, AOL has cut 2,000 jobs and closed down many of its European and international offices. In an interview with The Telegraph last month, he said: “There were problems at the company. First and foremost AOL was not a competitive from a productivity standpoint.”

He added that decades of acquisitions left AOL with “massive amounts of inefficiencies” with hundreds of people running different content management systems in dozens of countries.

Fo Real

There is another forum for this

Tech > Web > Blogs/Wikis/Social Networks

orourkeda

meh.

That_Guy

Facebook next please.

Snowie

cool il have to reactivate my faceparty account so i can be cool again .

AnonoBoy

I always preferred RockSteady myself but I'm sure it was hard for either of them to find work after the Turtles put Shredder out of business.

dlofnep

Nobody uses it anymore anyway. Gogo gadget facebook.

dlofnep

AnonoBoy wrote: »

I always preferred RockSteady myself but I'm sure it was hard for either of them to find work after the Turtles put Shredder out of business.

That was Bebop.

Biggins

Miss it like a hole in the head.

AnonoBoy

dlofnep wrote: »

That was Bebop.

Yup. Was Bebop. Out of business now so he is. Didn't you read the OP?

DazMarz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XoyDqFy5pU

Chairman Meow

oh no, now where will feuding gang members threaten each other or scumbags organise football riots??

mike65

Exactly, they'll over here

m@cc@

Friendface, FTW.

Kiera

mike65 wrote: »

Exactly, they'll over here

Looks like its already happened in the last few months tbh

Sizzler

That_Guy wrote: »

Facebook next please.

Thats the dream my friend, thats the dream.

Twitter gets shut down and we have a full house Stephen Fry would actually have to work again :rolleyes:

The guy who sold it must be laughin all the way to the bank.. In fact, he probably linked the story on his facebook profile.

thetonynator

has anyone here actually used their bebo account within the last 6 months???

Biggins

If ye are REALLY desperate, head over to William Shattners new facebook alternative. LOL
Here: http://myouterspace.com/
Mad stuff! LOL

News write-up: http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/3433980/William-Shatner-starts-Facebook-rival

t4k30

Yeah i read that ! All them young teenage memories lost !!

Amalgam

t4k30 wrote: »

Yeah i read that ! All them young teenage memories lost !!

..like tears in the rain.

Amhran Nua

I think facebook might be fairly secure financially, twitter is going to collapse before too long though, they have buckets of venture capital and no actual cashflow, with vague mumblings about selling things on the site at some stage up the road. Dot com boom part two, revenge of the social networks. If anyone has used that foursquare.com site that lets people know where you are so they can meet up socially, you might also want to take a look at this:

www.pleaserobme.com

msg11

AOL came in and turned the site to ****e, it looks awful. Is a mix of old and new site styles. The site needs a good update, not more money pumped into it. I'm sure there paying for web design at the moment.

That is a mad sum of money for a website, any website. If they start charging, if any of the sites start charging it's a sentence to death row for the website, cause no-one on the planet with a brain cell will pay for it. And someone will just start up another free social networking site.

The gap is fast approching, most of there base is in Ireland, and there 'clients' are shipping out to facebook. It just pisses me off, I know people hate the site, but from a web-designers view the site is what any developer wanted then some moron at the top of a company thrown orders around.

That guy needs to pick up a HTML book read it and learn to code the site. (you get my idea). Or go on dragons den for the investment.

Minstrel27

LOL at AOL

OutlawPete

Good, next time I'm in town and need to use an internet cafe, I won't have to put up with ten screaming kids around one PC while guy running the place nearly has a nervous breakdown with the fuckers.

Executive Steve

I don't know which surprises me more; the fact that AOL still exists or the fact that Bebo is still going.

Sykk

I didn't know people still used bebo..?

cleremy jarkson

Bebo was big in 2006 and, to a lesser extent, 2007. Since about the first half of 2008, nobody has really used it.

lcrcboy

Let me Finish this by saying R.I.P. Bebo haha... sorry had to laugh,

delighted that website is getting the axe

Atavan-Halen

Bebo is soooo late 2005/early 2006.

L.Jenkins

Snow-Monkey wrote: »

cool il have to reactivate my faceparty account so i can be cool again .

Unfortunately any inactive account was deleted and now you need to know a member to be invited or pay for it I think. I know for a fact you just cant register.

AnonoBoy

Sykk wrote: »

I didn't know people still used bebo..?

Evidently they don't.

It's back to Friendster for us now!

That_Guy

AnonoBoy wrote: »

Evidently they don't.

It's back to Friendster for us now!

Would you not, you know, talk to face to face with your friends?

The sooner Facebook/Twitter die the less I have to hear about how "savage da night wuz".

Actually maybe I should just delete my Facebook altogether. Easier option.

jd007

Bebo was crap, it won't be missed.

Rockee

Bebo: Past

Bookface:Now

Whoed have thought Bebo would die?

m@cc@

That_Guy wrote: »

The sooner Facebook/Twitter die the less I have to hear about how "savage da night wuz".

If that's how your friends talk, then Facebook is not your problem...

AnonoBoy

That_Guy wrote: »

Would you not, you know, talk to face to face with your friends?

Hey - I'm not the one with the Facebook account buddy.

az2wp0sye65487

What's a bebo?

That_Guy

Colten Deep Bum wrote: »

What's a bebo?

Stands for "Blog early, blog often"

Kinda stupid because everyone did everything but blog.

I love the idiots on the Meteor pages on Bebo who post out their number. Many a drunken night time prank was had.

Le King

Oh God!

8k2q1gfcz9s5d4

Snow-Monkey wrote: »

cool il have to reactivate my faceparty account so i can be cool again .

ha, i used to have a faceparty account, tried to log in there, my account was deleted!



one thing i love about facebook is that is much more private that bebo, i have some of my profile hidden from some people. logged onto bebo for the first time in months there! I wont miss it anyway

mikom

Sexy69 has sent you a defunct social network through farmville.
Do you wish to accept... yes/no.

admiralofthefleet

Osu wrote: »

Oh God!

are you a priest?

Cook!eMonster

i didnt even know bebo still existed lol

nehpets10

Facebook isn't going anywhere. It has over 400 million members and is actively trying to integrate itself all over the internet (facebook connect).

AOL made a massive mistake buying Bebo at that price. It was always lagging behind Facebook implementing Facebook features that worked in a half assed way.

That_Guy

Changing the profile layout was Bebo's downfall. It was just horrible imo.

jimmycrackcorm

Paedophiles everywhere pretneding to be kids will be utterly shocked at this news....

Eoin

AnonoBoy wrote: »

Evidently they don't.

They do, just not in the States. They said that Bebo have one million Irish accounts. Even if half of them are inactive, that's still absolutely massive market penetration.

I know it's really cool to say how crap FaceBook is, but I like it. It doesn't replace actual interaction like the cynics might say - it just makes it easier to keep in contact with people with whom you might not otherwise. There's an awful lot of bullshìt on it as well, but overall I think it's a great site.

**Timbuk2**

Doesn't make any difference to me, tbh. I'm sure it'll make Facebook happy though.

GavRedKing

Meh from me, I didnt login for well over a year at this stage, aint going to start now.

landsleaving

Am I the last person alive without a facebook page? I'm with that_guy, I hope they disappear. Then I can meet new people and not have to have a conversation about how I don't havea facebook, won't eb setting up a facebook and can we just exchange phone numbers instead?

Actually keep facebook, it works as an excellent social filter.