Well, there's been another yard sale in the world of Web 2.0, and this time AOL has taken the opportunity to snap up Bebo for a mere $850 million. Whilst it's unclear if this valuation is the result of every single paperclip being counted and every expense check being cleared, it's something the two UK founders aren't worrying about too much.
AOL's reasoning is that they can use the 40 million members of Bebo to extend the reach of their AIM messenger service. The UK is Bebo's largest market, where it's the second most popular social networking site, behind Facebook. AOL is not as ubiquitous in the UK as it is in the US, which is presumably one of the reasons that AOL has purchased the site. There was a certain amount of 'meh' heard over on these shores when Apple announced that AIM would be available on the iPhone, but perhaps it's becoming a more attractive proposition.
So, are you looking forward to Bebo having a live chat option? Or do you prefer to keep your social networking non-real time? I have to say, one of the attractions of Facebook is the fact that I can dip in and out when I want to.
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I have no interest in AOL and if anything, this will just get me further contemplating dumping all extraneous social networks and signing up to Facebook. Hopefully less 11/12 year olds...
I never really got into Bebo, but they seem to be doing some really interesting stuff around online TV shows at the moment. So long as AOL leave them alone (and they'd be mad not to), I doubt most kids will even notice/care