theregoesdave

<3

This morning AOL CEO Randy Falco announced that AOL is acquiring Bebo, the third largest social network behind Myspace and Facebook. With over 3.5 monthly unique viewer, Bebo is the number one social network in the UK and New Zealand.

Bebo resides in a space between Myspace and Facebook in that it is inclusive of teens and college students. It also strikes a nice balance between the rigid design of Facebook and the garbled mess of Myspace in look and feel. Bebo allows users to skin their profiles in order to add their own personal touch, and provides an infrastructure for applications that keeps profiles from becoming too jumbled. Bebo is also a member of the OpenSocial Alliance, which means that they will be able to take advantage of many cross platform applications and a huge developer network.

The question around social network sites in 2008 is whether they can sustain growth.

Myspace pageviews are flattening and it’s questionable whether Mark Zuckerberg can continue the frenzied pace of Facebook’s growth. Everyone is waiting to see how slowing inventory growth, a glut of advertising supply and a weakening economy will effect the online advertising space. So why would AOL jump headlong into this space?

• AOL hasn’t gained significant traction with their own social network projects
• Bebo has an established audience and a very reasonable valuation
• AOL is likely hoping to grow Bebo by way of introducing their US audience

This is a very shrewd deal with excellent potential for ‘re-circulating’ AOL users into Bebo- if done correctly. One looming concern is whether people want to join another social networking site. However, by sheer size of their audience AOL found users for both recent AIMPages and AIM profiles products.

Disclaimer: I do work for AOL, these views are 100% my own, and yes, I do have an AIM Profile.

• Bebo’s Open Strategy
• AOL Rounds out Platform A with Quigo
• Friendster Playing Catchup On The Mobile Web