Bebo

» see bebo.com as it lived, on the wayback machine

~ the obit ~

bebo launched in july 2005, founded by michael and xochi birch in san francisco. the audience that mattered was not in the US. bebo became huge in the UK and ireland from about 2006 to 2009. for a few years it was the dominant social network in those markets, beating both myspace and the early facebook.

AOL bought bebo in march 2008 for 850 million dollars. AOL had not had a successful acquisition in years. the bebo deal was supposed to be their re-entry into the social network market. it was not. AOL ran bebo for two years, made several unpopular changes, watched the audience drain to facebook, and sold it in june 2010 for under 10 million dollars.

the original founders bought bebo back from its post-AOL owners in july 2013 for about a million dollars. they tried to relaunch it as a different product. that did not work either. on 17 july 2013 the original bebo brand was effectively retired.

~ the rap sheet ~

~ why it was big in the UK ~

bebo's UK and ireland dominance from 2006 to 2009 was specific. the cultural fit was right. bebo profiles were customizable in a way that worked for british and irish teenagers. the comment threading was good. there was a british-irish-coded humor in the bebo comment culture that did not translate to myspace or facebook.

bebo also had several features that became cultural phenomena in the UK. the "luv" system (you could send a "luv" to a friend, and the count showed on profiles) became a teenage social currency. the "whitewall" was a public area on each profile where friends would write or draw cartoons (it was actually drawable, with a small in-browser drawing tool). british teenagers in 2007-2008 spent significant time decorating each other's whitewalls.

in turkey i never really used bebo. hi5 was the social network here. but i had a couple of british friends who were on bebo and the screenshots they would share looked very different from what i was using. the customization was wilder. the inside humor was thicker. the whitewalls were a culture i did not have access to.

~ the AOL acquisition ~

AOL bought bebo on 13 march 2008. the price was 850 million dollars in cash. AOL was trying to get back into the social network business after losing market share for years. their pitch was that bebo had real engaged users in markets where AOL still had a presence (UK ISP business through Carphone Warehouse).

the acquisition was widely criticized at the time. industry analysts pointed out that bebo's growth had already slowed, that facebook was rapidly localizing to the UK, and that 850 million was steep for a network that had not yet figured out monetization. AOL bought it anyway.

AOL's stewardship of bebo was bad. they made several unpopular changes (forced single sign-on, removed some customization options, integrated AOL ads more aggressively). user growth stalled. user activity declined. by mid-2009 it was clear bebo was losing the UK market to facebook quickly.

~ the shutdown ~

on 17 june 2010 AOL sold bebo to criterion capital partners for under 10 million dollars. AOL took an 850 million dollar loss on a two-year-old acquisition. it is one of the worst tech acquisitions in modern history by absolute dollar loss.

criterion held bebo for a few years and ran it as a smaller, ad-supported product. the audience kept shrinking. by 2013 bebo was barely operational. the original founders, michael and xochi birch, bought bebo back from criterion in july 2013 for about a million dollars. their plan was to relaunch it as something different, perhaps a video-focused product.

the relaunch never quite worked. bebo as the original product effectively ended on 17 july 2013. the brand has continued to exist in various forms (a streaming-focused app launched in 2019 also called bebo) but those are different products. the bebo of 2007-2009 is gone.

~ what survived ~

the AOL acquisition lesson. 850 million dollars for a social network at the wrong moment is the case study for why "user count" is not a sufficient acquisition signal. the bebo audience was already migrating when AOL bought. the migration accelerated under AOL. the loss was almost a billion dollars. every M&A team learning their job reads about bebo.

the british teenage internet of 2007-2008. bebo was specifically a UK and ireland phenomenon. the cohort that grew up on it has its own memories that do not map to myspace or facebook nostalgia. the whitewall as a social form is unique to bebo.

the founders' attempt to buy back. michael and xochi birch buying bebo back from criterion for a million dollars in 2013 is a small uplifting tech story. they did not save the brand but they tried. founder buybacks of dead products are rare. the gesture matters even though the relaunch did not work.

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