I don’t have time to start hypothesizing, but thought this was worth sharing asap. AOL has announced today it has entered into an agreement to buy Bebo for $850 million.
Bebo’s one of the biggest social networking sites in the UK, number 1 in Ireland and New Zealand, and is number 3 in the US. It’s also more focused on the early and pre-teen market, and has also been developing video channels/promotions, including Kate Modern (currently the most successful web TV show).
There’s more info on the purchase as BusinessWire.
My quick response is that I have an element of fear about a Myspace type stagnation due to a purchase, but coming a week after opening up AOL Instant Messenger, hopefully AOL has thought carefully about how to oversee Bebo without destroying what has made it successful. And it’ll be interesting to see what efforts they might make to change the monetisation of the site – something social networks have traditionally struggled with despite huge predictions of ever-increasing advertisement spending.
As long as I don’t get bombarded with cd’s to set me up on Bebo, I’ll be happy.