Bebo

~ how it started ~

Bebo was launched in July 2005 by Michael Birch and his wife Xochi, a husband-and-wife team in San Francisco. The name was reportedly an acronym for "Blog Early, Blog Often." The platform was, structurally, a competitor to MySpace and Friendster, a social network with profiles, comments, photos, and music sharing. Within two years it had become the dominant social network in the UK and Ireland, with big penetration in Australia and New Zealand as well.

On March 13, 2008, AOL bought Bebo for $850 million. It was, at the time, AOL's largest buyout since the disastrous Time Warner merger. By June 2010 AOL sold Bebo to a private equity firm, Criterion Capital Partners, for about $10 million, a 99% loss in two years and three months. Next owners cycled through quickly, and bebo shut down formally on July 18, 2013. The brand has had several minor revival tries since (a 2014 messaging app, a 2019 try) but nothing has stuck.

~ the rap sheet ~

~ what bebo was ~

Bebo's product was, at first glance, derivative of MySpace. Profiles with photos, friends, music, and comments. But Bebo had several specific features that made it distinct:

Whiteboard: Each Bebo profile had a "Whiteboard" - a small painting canvas where you could draw a doodle, save it, and post it on your profile. Friends could rate your whiteboard drawings. For a generation of UK teenagers, the Bebo Whiteboard was their first creative tool on the internet. Friend lovability: Bebo had a "Luv" feature. You could give one of your friends per day a "Luv" (a small heart icon). Luv was finite: you only had a few to give per day. Distribution of Luv was a public statement about which of your friends mattered most. The other half: A particular Bebo feature: you could designate one friend as your "Other Half". The equivalent of a "best friend." There was only one Other Half slot per account, and it was visible on your profile prominently. Many UK teenagers' first major friendship breakup was somebody being demoted from Other Half. Quizzes: Bebo had a huge world of user-generated quizzes ("How well do you know me?", "Which character from [TV show] are you?"). Friends took your quiz, scored, and the result was posted. The quiz format was, a precursor to the BuzzFeed quiz era.

~ the AOL buyout ~

The 2008 AOL buyout was AOL's most ambitious try to enter social networking. AOL had tried earlier (their internal "Hometown" homepage product, the AIM social features) without success. Bebo was supposed to be the rocket fuel: a young, growing social network that AOL's reach could turbocharge into a global Facebook competitor.

Almost everything went wrong. Within months of the buyout, AOL began integrating Bebo with AOL Mail and AIM, which damaged Bebo's standalone brand identity. Bebo's UK-and-Ireland-centric culture did not respond well to corporate Americanisation. Many users left for Facebook, which by 2009 had achieved key mass in the UK with a faster, simpler interface and no AOL-branded clutter.

By 2010, with Bebo's user base in steep decline, AOL conceded the strategic failure. The June 2010 sale to Criterion Capital Partners was, a write-off, and the buyout is studied in business school case courses as one of the canonical examples of overpaying for a market that was about to be disrupted by an incumbent.

~ the rotation of owners ~

After Criterion Capital Partners, Bebo passed through several owners in quick succession. Each new owner had a new vision: a relaunched social network, a video-content platform, a messaging app, a series of mobile games. None of these stuck. The user base, mostly absent by 2010, did not return. The brand lost cultural relevance year by year.

Michael and Xochi Birch. Who had made about $400 million from the AOL sale; reacquired Bebo in 2013 for around $1 million, a strange poetic-justice move. They tried briefly to relaunch it. It did not work. The platform formally shut down on July 18, 2013.

~ what disappeared ~

The Whiteboard. Bebo's drawing canvas was a creative outlet that did not require artistic talent. Nothing equivalent has been embedded in social networks since. The closest cousin is Snapchat's drawing tools, but those are ephemeral. Bebo Whiteboards were saved and rated.

The Other Half. The visible single-best-friend designation was, for UK teenagers, a real social ritual. The decision to demote or promote your Other Half was a public moment. Modern friendships are comparatively private; "best friend" is no longer a publicly-displayed slot anywhere.

The regional social network. Bebo proved that countries could have their own dominant social networks. The 2010s consolidation around Facebook (and later Instagram and TikTok) flattened these regional differences. The UK lost its own social network. Brazil lost theirs (Orkut). Each country gave up a piece of cultural sovereignty in exchange for global connectivity.

~ words from mourners ~

"my bebo whiteboard from 2007 had 14 different drawings of my dog. she was rated 4.5/5 by my friends. the dog has been gone for ten years. the drawings are gone too. the rating is the only artefact i still know.". e.k. 33, glasgow

"my other half on bebo from 2008 to 2009 was sarah. we have not been in contact in fourteen years. but i still occasionally remember being her other half as a small badge of honour i carry around without anyone knowing.", m.r. 35, dublin

"bebo's slogan was 'share your life with anyone you choose.' i shared my life with 247 people. i now share it with three. i don't know if this is progress.", a.ö. 36, london