Bebo - for sale!

Bebo looks like a No-Go

Just two short years after AOL stumped up $850M for Bebo to set itself up as a major competitor to MySpace and Facebook, it is pulling the plug.  In a recent statement, Jon Brod, of AOL Ventures, declared:-
“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."
This statement has been made in connection with an “assurance” that AOL are looking for buyers for Bebo.  Given the dominance of Facebook, however, it would seem to us to be a very tough sell at any price. Comanies such as ours are even using Facebook and Twitter to advertise our IT Support Services. The deadline that AOL has set is “the end of next month” and this will make for a very interesting 6 weeks, as they will no doubt want to offload it for at least some money, rather than downing the site in an unceremonious switching off procedure.