It’s hardly an original idea: Natter has launched as yet-another-attempt to create a “safe’ Chatroulette-style video chat site.
Just like Andrey Ternovskiy‘s creation, the site lets strangers find each other via webcam, only this time – and similar to vChatter, which also powers social network Bebo’s own take on the idea – users have to log-in via Facebook, therefore insisting on a certain amount of real identity accountability. There’s an over eighteen user policy too and users also specify whether they’d like to chat to women, men or either. The site’s founders have an online dating site background. → Read More
It’s not quite on the level of Steve Jobs returning to Apple, but every time a founder comes home it leaves me feeling all warm and fuzzy. This time it’s the turn of Michael Birch who has re-joined Bebo as a strategic advisor, along with investing in the social network which he co-founded with his wife Xochi in early 2005 before selling the company to AOL in 2008 for $850 million.
Since then, of course, Bebo has seen another change of hands: After being left to languish by AOL, who eventually shut it down for tax purposes, the social network was sold to Criterion Capital Partners for about $10m in June of this year. → Read More
It’s not quite on the level of Steve Jobs returning to Apple, but every time a founder comes home it leaves me feeling all warm and fuzzy. This time it’s the turn of Michael Birch who has re-joined Bebo as a strategic advisor, along with investing in the social network which he co-founded with his wife Xochi in early 2005 before selling the company to AOL in 2008 for $850 million.
Since then, of course, Bebo has seen another change of hands: After being left to languish by AOL, who eventually shut it down for tax purposes, the social network was sold to Criterion Capital Partners for about $10m in June of this year. → Read More
Following on from the recent addition of IM powered by Meebo’s web-based client, Bebo has rolled out a video chat feature called bChat. Think Chatroulette “sans-private parts” was the line given to me (phew!). It’s provided by Vchatter, the social video chat service that is already available on Facebook and as a standalone offering, and is part of a wider strategy by Bebo to become relevant again by making its platform more realtime and interactive. And about time too.
A quick re-cap: After Bebo sold to AOL for $850 million in 2008, the platform was left to languish, with AOL eventually shutting it down for tax purposes and selling it for about $10m to Criterion Capital Partners. However, as we recently reported, the new team of 20 or so employees (and growing) has already made the site profitable and it’s now coming back in user numbers. Today’s news is another sign that the social network has a new spring in its step. → Read More
Following on from the recent addition of IM powered by Meebo’s web-based client, Bebo has rolled out a video chat feature called bChat. Think Chatroulette “sans-private parts” was the line given to me (phew!). It’s provided by Vchatter, the social video chat service that is already available on Facebook and as a standalone offering, and is part of a wider strategy by Bebo to become relevant again by making its platform more realtime and interactive. And about time too.
A quick re-cap: After Bebo sold to AOL for $850 million in 2008, the platform was left to languish, with AOL eventually shutting it down for tax purposes and selling it for about $10m to Criterion Capital Partners. However, as we recently reported, the new team of 20 or so employees (and growing) has already made the site profitable and it’s now coming back in user numbers. Today’s news is another sign that the social network has a new spring in its step. → Read More
Bebo just launched Meebo’s web-based instant messaging client across the social network and the company says a million messages have been sent already
This is Bebo’s first step towards a much more real-time, interactive platform since they sold to AOL for $850 million in 2008. Right after that AOL let the platform languish, eventually shutting it down for tax purposes and selling it for about $10m to Criterion Capital Partners. True story.
The new team of 20 or so employees has – surprise surprise – made the site profitable and it’s now coming back in user numbers. Mike Arrington’s recent interview with CTO Akash Garg suggested they’d be going for “Self expression, mobile and video will be strong components.” Clearly IM and Meebo is part of that. → Read More
Bebo is like a bad case of herpes – it just keeps coming back. They sold to AOL for $850 million in 2008. Then AOL, under new management, sort of just shut it down for tax purposes, selling it for next to nothing to Criterion Capital Partners. AOL CEO Tim Armstrong called the whole thing a huge distraction.
But if you think you’ve seen the last of Bebo, you’re wrong. A whole new team is in place, and with just 20 or so employees the site is profitable and growing with 6 millionish active users. So what next? → Read More
The rumors are true: hedge fund Criterion Capital Partners is indeed the buyer of Bebo. As we reported yesterday, AOL is offloading the social networking service for less than $10 million (other media are reporting a purchase price of around $2.5 million).
To remind you: AOL paid $850 million for Bebo back in 2008. Ouch indeed.
In a press release that just went out, Criterion acknowledges that it has acquired the Bebo business from AOL and that it will “assume the rights and complete operating control over the global social platform business”. → Read More
AOL is close to selling Bebo to an investor group, we’ve confirmed from a source close to the company. The price? $10 million or less. Rumors of the acquisition first surfaced this morning, and the buyer may be Criterion Capital Partners.
That’s just a bit less than the $850 million AOL paid for the social network in 2008. And as decimated as Bebo is, it’s almost certainly worth more than $10 million. → Read More
Hitwise, the web analytics firm, has a report out today that claims that social networks now receive more UK Internet visits than search engines.
Which, if the case, would imply that Google should be considerably worried about its future battle with the likes of Facebook and Twitter, as online marketing spend will surely follow Internet foot-through. Or does it?
According to Hitwise, during May, social networks accounted for 11.88% of UK Internet visits and search engines accounted for 11.33%, representing the first ever month that social networks have been more popular than search engines in the UK. → Read More
Straight from the horse’s mouth: AOL CEO Tim Armstrong just told the TechCrunch Disrupt audience what most industry watchers already knew: the company made a strategic mistake in acquiring social network Bebo, and it ended up being a “major distraction” for them.
Armstrong admitted that it would have been very hard to make Bebo work right out the gate no matter what, and that probably the deal shouldn’t have gone through in the first place, given technology and other issues. → Read More
Michael Birch, who co-founded social network Bebo along with his wife Xochi Birch, has invested an undisclosed amount in social media agency Punktilio. He’ll also become an adviser to the company.
Punktilio, whose clients include Arsenal F.C, Harper Collins, Phones 4u and Simon Cowell’s SyCo Music label, was founded by ex-Bebo Head of Music, Hal Stokes, so there’s an existing relationship between the two. Stokes launched Punktilio with his brother Sam after leaving AOL last year.
AOL of course purchased Bebo for $850 in March 2008, and is only now looking to shut down or offload the site, which has suffered badly in the last few years with the rise of Facebook. → Read More
AOL needs to offload Bebo fast. And tax experts say that the best financial result for AOL may be to simply abandon Bebo rather than sell it. All of that makes for a rather awkward situation with Bebo partners.
How do you handle that awkwardness? Send out a mass email to all open media partners to explain the situation: → Read More
AOL has long regretted its $850 million purchase of social network Bebo, and ever since CEO Tim Armstrong came on board it’s pretty much been left to die on the vine. AOL is preparing a filing in the UK to alert regulators there of its plans to either sell or shut down the site. While a sale seems like the logical way to go, Bebo is pretty much worthless now and for tax reasons it might make more sense to simply shut it down.
In an email sent out to employees today, AOL explained: → Read More
Facebook has been famously thin in terms of its international organisation. Visiting their London offices recently impressed upon me how few people they actually have in Europe. A few sales staff, a PR, receptionist etc. As far as I could tell, only the affable Christian Hernandez was doing anything in wider Europe, as Facebook’s international biz dev guy. So it’s not before time that it’s expanding its global sales organisation.
Joanna Shields has re-emerged after recently exiting from her role at AOL, as Faceboook’s new VP of Sales and Business Development for EMEA. Joanna was previously CEO of Bebo and President of People Platforms at AOL.
Joanna was also the person who got advertising agencies to buy into Bebo, thus triggering its sale to AOL. We are talking one persuasive person here. → Read More
Newly independent Aol is still struggling with the fate of Bebo, the social network they acquired for $850 million in 2008.
No one argues that Aol underpaid for Bebo. And the social network has fallen from 22 million monthly unique visitors when it was acquired to just 14.6 million today (Comscore worldwide). But even so, Bebo clearly has some value on the open market.
Despite that value, Aol’s best financial option for Bebo will likely be to abandon it rather than sell it, say corporate tax experts we’ve spoken with. → Read More
Amid rapid growth, Foursquare has hired someone to help ease the load. Evan Cohen, Bebo’s former director of strategy and operations has been hired as Foursquare’s General Manager, we’ve confirmed with co-founder Dennis Crowley.
If the title sounds a bit odd, it’s because Foursquare is avoiding having executive-sounding positions, Crowley says. But Cohen’s role will be vital for the startup as he’ll be basically stepping in for much of what takes up Crowley’s time now: big deals, hiring, outgrowing our space, finances, and legal issues. “Everything that takes me away from product,” Crowley notes. In other words, basically he’ll be the COO of the young startup. → Read More
[UK] GigJunkie, a site that helps UK music fans discover gigs and purchase concert tickets, has announced a partnership with AOL-owned Bebo.
The new collaboration sees the launch of the ‘Tour Dates‘ application, which enables British Bebo users to get a heads-up of when their favourite bands are playing nearby and of course purchase tickets. It does this by looking at the artists listed in a user’s Bebo profile.
The app isn’t just aimed at music fans, however, but also record labels themselves who can use it to push tour dates directly to interested punters. Atlantic Records have already begun doing so, along with independent label Visible Noise. It’s all part of Bebo’s play to “build an ecosystem around music”, says David MacDonald, Bebo’s Business Development Director Europe. → Read More
For all the billions of dollars created here, Silicon Valley is remarkably stingy when it comes to giving. I first wrote about this when I moved here in the great Web 1.0 Internet bubble. Back then, as companies went public all around us, one-third of households earning $100,000 or more gave $1,000 or less to charity—roughly half what the rest of the U.S. gave per dollar earned. And those were the fat times.
I don’t have comparable data to back it up, but anecdotally it seems the Web 2.0 generation is doing a better job at giving. Or at least Bebo founder Michael Birch is.
Birch has spent the last six months working with a team of two other people to build a social giving site for the popular organization, Charity:Water. It launched its beta site today, and with just a Tweet announcing it nearly 400 members have already raised some $3,000. → Read More
Interesting off hand comment by AOL CEO Tim Armstrong at the Fortune event this morning. Bebo, the social network AOL paid $850 million for in 2008, wasn’t mentioned on the list of AOL’s core product goals going forward. Late in the interview, though, Armstrong was asked where Bebo fits into that strategy. His answer, roughly quoted “Bebo may be better off under AOL Ventures, with it’s own P&L.”
Translation – AOL is looking to spin Bebo off into an independent company, and they’ll retain an equity interest via AOL Ventures. → Read More
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