Roundup: Spam bounces back, angel investors balk, Entellium bigwigs go to jail and more
Bebo caught in Irish conflict — The video sharing site has become an unexpected platform for both Irish Catholics and Protestants to hurl insults and violent threats at each other. The BBC has the story.
Downturn puts drag on angels — The Center for Venture Research reports that angel investors put less money into each of their startups in 2008 than in years previous, noting a drop of 26 percent from 2007.
Encarta buckles under Wikipedia’s weight — Microsoft will… Continue Reading
AOL takes one part Bebo, one part AIM, wants to create central lifestreaming service
What does AOL get when it pairs aging instant message service AIM with Bebo, the also-ran social network that it bought for $850 million last spring? A web service that could one day be a main way for people to interact on any web site, the company hopes. Set aside your knee-jerk cynicism about the big tech-media conglomerate trying to innovate, for a moment, because the service is looking better — especially better than what… Continue Reading
Roundup: Yelp allegedly extorts, Twitter embraces its origins, Tesla CMO defects and more
Here’s the latest action:
The downturn finally hits HP — The company announced a 10 percent drop in earnings yesterday and plans to cut salaries. CNet has more.
Yelp accused of extortion, again — Local business owners report that the trendy review site offers to hide negative critiques in exchange for cash. And it’s not the first time Yelp has been called out for this.
TechCrunch reviews 2008 — Erick Schonfeld offers up insightful snapshots of last year’s startup, venture and… Continue Reading
Facebook’s traffic growth leaving rivals in the dust
Facebook has grown to 150 million users this month, more than half of whom use the site every day, according to company chief executive Mark Zuckerberg. Other social networks, like MySpace, Friendster, hi5, Bebo and Orkut, have also become popular around the world over the last decade, and they all boast tens of millions of users. But none are as large or growing as fast as Facebook
Take a look at the comScore chart, above, and… Continue Reading
AOL’s web-wide chat plans for AIM still in Powerpoint
AOL is thinking about launching a service that integrates AIM, its instant message service, into other sites, as we reported earlier this month. However, sources close to the company are saying the plans are still in Powerpoint — AOL has just been showing mock-ups to potential partners.
Conceptually, it’s an interesting idea. The plan could make once-dominant AIM — and Bebo, its recently-purchased social network — more central to the web. The service could let users… Continue Reading
Bebo launches new homepage, its take on lifestreaming
Bebo is launching a big upgrade to its user homepage. The social network is integrating ways to read email and see what friends are doing on other sites in one place. It’s the AOL-owned company’s take on a web trend called “lifestreaming.”
At this point, there’s a wide range of competitors offering lifestreaming services and cross-site integration, from social network Facebook to leading lifestreaming company Friendfeed. Perhaps this redesign will give Bebo a boost. With its… Continue Reading
The market value of social networks: Facebook may rule, actually
Is social networking company MySpace really more valuable than Facebook, just because it has more traffic in the large, lucrative U.S. market?
No, not really.
Yet that’s the argument Techcrunch makes, in a piece that argues MySpace has the edge because advertisers spend more money online in the U.S. than in most other countries. Each U.S. user is more “valuable” than, say, a user in India or Canada, Techcrunch argues, because advertisers spend a lot less on… Continue Reading
Roundup: YouTube making money now? Managers leaving Bebo, and more
As YouTube grows, some estimate it’s making up to $200 million this year — The revenue number comes from a couple estimates reviewed by Erick Schonfeld at Techcrunch, where he looks at how the site’s increasing dominance (see comScore graphs, below) may translate to money. Schonfeld calculates that YouTube is making at least $80 million revenue (not profit) based on some of its more prominent pieces ad inventory; the $200 million number comes from Forbes. I… Continue Reading
Even as Bebo’s big sale happens, lofty valuations will elude other start-ups
Clouds are gathering over Silicon Valley’s consumer internet companies. The sale of social networking company Bebo (our coverage) comes at a time when private investors are changing their tune. They’re no longer pumping money into start-ups at the same huge valuations they were doing last year.
Until January, life was groovy as an internet start-up. Over the past 18 months, hedge funds and other large investors eagerly swooped in and invest hordes of cash into consumer… Continue Reading
Hitwise and Comscore: Bebo traffic kinda significant, but not really growing
Updated with Comscore data, at the bottom of the article
So AOL bought Bebo earlier today, but what did it really buy? A lot of traffic in the UK and in former British Commonwealth countries like New Zealand, but not so much in the US.
(See our earlier story for a lot more background on the deal.)
But Bebo’s traffic seems to be generally leveling off, along with traffic at market leaders Facebook and MySpace. Perhaps all of… Continue Reading
Last year’s purchase rumor was true. Bebo bought today — for $850 million, by AOL
Updated with more information about deal terms, below. See our latest story on Bebo traffic stats, here.
AOL has announced that it has bought social network Bebo for $850 million in cash. It’s easy to be skeptical and say that this is an also-ran internet conglomerate buying a second-tier social network. But AOL has been trying hard to buy and merge its way into relevancy — and Bebo is most certainly relevant and could be… Continue Reading
Roundup: Bebo platform opens while Facebook cracks down on apps, and more
1. Bebo’s developer platform now open to all
2. Facebook to let you hide applications on your profile page
3. Top Israeli web companies to tour Silicon Valley
4. Fewer IPOs in Europe this past year
5. Satisfaction, a site where customers can review companies, growing fast, to offer API
6. Vast.com, white label search company, buys Edgeio asset Adaptive Real Estate
Bebo’s developer platform now open to all – Bebo’s platform was announced last month, with more than 35 of… Continue Reading
Gaia Online on Bebo, and other apps that span sites and work great
Social networks like Facebook and Bebo currently limit users and third-party developers from fully exporting most user data to other sites. However, there are a number of applications that are using these company’s social networking platforms to share data across sites, grow and even make money.
Virtual world Gaia Online, for example, recently introduced an application for Bebo that is now one of the social network’s most popular.
The trend of cross-site applications will pick up steam… Continue Reading
Bebo’s platform growing fast, worth something?
Social network Bebo has just announced that its users have installed third-party applications 4,250,409 times since the site launched its developer platform last week.
This install number is significant, as it shows Bebo users want these applications nearly as much as Facebook users have. It also shows that applications developers on Facebook can expand beyond their Facebook audiences.
For sake of comparison, the most popular applications on Facebook grew to millions of users within a couple weeks… Continue Reading
Bebo brings in bank, but says it’s not looking to sell
Social network Bebo recently hired a bank to help sell itself, we were told by a source. However, the San Francisco company responded to a request for comment, saying it hired the bank to help it “potentially” raise another round of funding.
Hiring a bank for financing suggests it wants to raise a significant amount of funding, probably from private equity firms, hedge funds, or other late-stage investors. Bebo’s competitors have deep pockets: Myspace is owned… Continue Reading
Bebo uses Facebook’s developer platform to tap its own user base
Updated
Social network Bebo has taken a page from Facebook. It has launched its own, full-blown developer platform that, like Facebook’s, gives third-party developers deeper access to its user data.
In fact, Facebook worked directly with Bebo on its platform to ensure that Facebook applications can be easily ported over to Bebo without developers having to re-write much code.
UPDATE: This is part of a larger Facebook effort to make its platform compatible with other social networks.
Bebo, which… Continue Reading
Friendster, Bebo, LinkedIn all opening — aren’t waiting for OpenSocial
Friendster and Bebo are joining LinkedIn as the latest large social networks to throw open their web sites to outside developers.
Like Facebook, and a recent effort led by Google to do something similar with its “OpenSocial” project, these sites are letting third parties build applications for their pages. By recruiting other developers, the social networks are hoping to stimulate a barrage of activity — letting developers access data about users to create helpful services.
This, in… Continue Reading
Bebo offers better video distribution to media companies
Bebo, a large social network that’s especially popular in the UK, has launched a way for large media companies to deliver their videos directly within the site.
The social network will let media companies use their own video player technology to present videos to Bebo’s users, and let those companies keep all the revenue from ads within their videos.
The service is called Open Media, and it includes a recommendation feature that shows users what videos their… Continue Reading
Co-founder of Bebo leaves to join venture firm: Q&A
Jim Scheinman, one of three founders of Bebo, is leaving the company he helped start to become an Entrepreneur in Residence at the VC firm, Charles River Ventures. We talked with him to discuss that decision, his days at Friendster, his plans for the future and, of course, Facebook.
VB: What was it about this opportunity that made you decide to leave Bebo?
JS: I’m an early-stage entrepreneur at heart and the time was right for me to… Continue Reading
Social networking roundup: Myspace ads, Facebook data, and more
1) Myspace launches advertising based on user data
2) It’s the social network data that matters, stupid.
3) OpenSocial will be big for marketers who want to connect to social network users
4) Google Trends: searches for Facebook nearly equal to searches for Myspace in the US
Myspace to launch advertising based on user data — Myspace plans to launch a self-service advertising system that includes new targeting technology for placing ads with users that are relevant to their… Continue Reading