Bebo on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
Bebo ( ) was an American
social networking website that originally operated from 2005 until its bankruptcy in 2013 and relaunched in February 2021. The site relaunched several times after its bankruptcy with a number of short-lived offerings, including
instant messaging
Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...
and
video streaming, until its acquisition by
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...
in July 2019 when it was shut down. It was announced in January 2021 that it would be returning as a new social media site the month after. By May 2022, it had been once again shutdown, without having ever left beta testing.
The site was founded by
Michael Birch and
Xochi Birch
Xochi Birch OBE () is an American computer programmer and entrepreneur in San Francisco, California. She is the co-founder of several companies since 1999, most notably the online social networking website Bebo, with her husband Michael Birch. S ...
.
History
Founding and early years
Bebo was founded by husband-and-wife team Michael and Xochi Birch in January 2005 at their home in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
.
The website name was bought by the founders, and the
backronym
A backronym is an acronym formed from an already existing word by expanding its letters into the words of a phrase. Backronyms may be invented with either serious or humorous intent, or they may be a type of false etymology or folk etymology. The ...
"Blog Early, Blog Often" was invented to answer the question of what the name meant.
The website, at the height of its popularity, overtook
Myspace to become the most widely used social networking website in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
, eventually registering at least 10.7 million unique users.
Sale to AOL
Bebo's popularity saw it sold to
AOL in March 2008 for $850 million, with the Birches' combined 70% stake yielding a profit of $595 million from the deal.
The
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
later described the AOL purchase of Bebo as "one of the worst deals ever made in the dotcom era",
and it cost the then-CEO of AOL,
Randy Falco
Randel A. Falco (born December 26, 1953) is an American media executive. Falco was president and CEO of Univision Communications Inc. from June 2011 until retiring in June 2018. Before joining Univision in January 2011 as Executive Vice President ...
, his job.
On April 7, 2010, AOL announced that it would either sell the website or shut it down; this was mainly due to the falling numbers of unique users moving to rival site
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...
. AOL said that Bebo could not compete with other social networking sites in its current state and that the company could not commit to taking on the massive task to keep Bebo in the social network race. It has been reported that AOL's finances were struggling.
The National Space Agency of Ukraine's RT-70 radio telescope sent 501 messages chosen by Bebo users, called A Message From Earth, toward planet
Gliese 581c. Sent on 9 October 2008, it will arrive in the spring of 2028.
Criterion Capital Partners ownership transfer
On June 16, 2010, AOL sold Bebo to hedge fund operators
Criterion Capital Partners
Criterion Capital Partners LLC, also known as simply Criterion, is a private equity fund based in Los Angeles, California. It is best known for being the owner of Bebo, from 2010-2013.
History
Christopher Lord co-founded the company in 2002. ...
.
On February 17, 2011, Bebo launched a brand-new design. This consisted of a new, more modern header and home page, as well as a new profile layout option. Users could also see who had visited their profiles (a feature which could be changed in settings). In April 2011, Bebo added a new notification system, similar to Facebook's - a feature which had been much-requested in feedback. It notified users of new inbox messages, lifestream activity and more.
On January 30, 2012, access to Bebo became unavailable for 36 hours, resuming normal service during the early hours of February 1, 2012. A Bebo spokesperson told TechCrunch that the site was down due to "a technical clusterfuck".
Adam Levin, CEO of Bebo and
Criterion Capital Partners
Criterion Capital Partners LLC, also known as simply Criterion, is a private equity fund based in Los Angeles, California. It is best known for being the owner of Bebo, from 2010-2013.
History
Christopher Lord co-founded the company in 2002. ...
, stated that they were trying to release some new features which caused the site to crash. No data was lost as a result of the outage. The crash triggered a belief that Bebo was gone for good, so that the hashtag #bebomemories trended worldwide on
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
.
2013: Bankruptcy and sale
In May 2013, the company voluntarily filed for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection
Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code ( Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, whet ...
;
however, Burke Capital Corporation receiver has clarified that Bebo remains "healthy" and "operating" and that the company was using its May 9 Chapter 11 filing in Los Angeles to "restructure some operational inefficiencies and other arrangements that are burdensome." Many analysts have questioned the value proposition that Bebo could offer users and do not fault CCP.
On July 1, 2013, Michael and Xochi Birch, the original founders, purchased the social network back from Criterion Capital Partners (CCP) for $1 million.
On August 6, 2013, messages were posted on Bebo.com informing users that the site would be down for maintenance from August 7, 2013. On August 7, 2013, a video featuring Michael announcing his plan for the new Bebo was placed on the front page of the site. The video informed users that the site would be taken down while the Bebo team developed the new product. Many believed that this would be normal maintenance; however, it was revealed that the site would be closed for a few months. The announcement also stated that all user content had been deleted, but users' blog posts and images would be retrievable in downloadable format should members opt in to receive this. However, members who submitted emails still have not retrieved profile data (pictures, blogs, etc.).
2014–16: Return of Bebo and introduction of Bebo Blab
In April 2014, Bebo founder
Michael Birch took to Bebo in a tongue-in-cheek video to promote the re-launch of Bebo with the slogan, "Probably Not for Boring People". The relaunch video emphasized Bebo's history in which it included its then-most popular feature: the white board.
Bebo relaunched on January 7, 2015; announced with the new Bebo was a messenger app called Bebo Blab which was available on
Google Play
Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating sy ...
and Apple App stores. The app massed 3.9 million users in just one year. After two years of its re-launch Bebo Blab shut down, as users weren't returning to the platform to watch archived streams on replay. Birch wrote:
"Blab was great in many ways, but it wasn’t going to be an everyday thing for millions. So we’re kicking down the sandcastle, and re-building it as an ‘always on’ place to hang with friends."
2017–2018: Bebo streaming software
As of April 19, 2018, the site offers a multi-feature
Twitch
Twitch may refer to:
Biology
* Muscle contraction
** Convulsion, rapid and repeated muscle contraction and relaxation
** Fasciculation, a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction
** Myoclonic twitch, a jerk usually caused by sudden muscle co ...
streaming software (similar to
Open Broadcaster Software
OBS Studio (also Open Broadcaster Software or OBS, for short) is a free, open-source, and cross-platform screencasting and streaming app. It is available for Windows, macOS, Linux distributions, and BSD. The OBS Project raises funds on the ...
or
XSplit
XSplit is a live streaming and video-mixing application developed and maintained by SplitmediaLabs. It is mostly used for capturing gameplay for live streaming or video recording purposes. A Steam version was published by Devolver Digital on 12 ...
). This closed down in October 2018 to focus on tournament software.
2019: Sale to Amazon
In July 2019, Amazon, through their subsidiary
Twitch Interactive, acquired Bebo for US$25 million after outbidding
Discord
Discord is a VoIP and instant messaging social platform. Users have the ability to communicate with voice calls, video calls, text messaging, media and files in private chats or as part of communities called "servers".The developer documenta ...
.
2021-2022: Relaunch
In early 2021, the Bebo.com webpage began to display a series of messages suggesting a new relaunch of Bebo was imminent. In an interview on February 3, founder
Michael Birch described his plan to relaunch the social networking website with a focus on individual profiles, rather than the news feed that had become ubiquitous throughout the rest of social media.
2022: Second shutdown
As of May 2022, Bebo has been shutdown again, never having left its private beta-testing phase, with the website now displaying a quote by founder Michael Birch, about the attempts of resurrecting Bebo. Birch states "Who knows", in response to if Bebo would ever be relaunched again.
Original website features
Users received a personal profile page where they would post
blog
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...
s, photographs, music, videos, and questionnaires, which other users may answer. Additionally, users could add others as friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves.
Each Bebo user received a profile, which included two specific modules: a comment section where other users could leave a message and a list of the user's friends. Users could select from many more modules to add. By default, when an account was created, the profile was private, which limited access to friends. The user could select the "Public Profile" option so the profile would be visible to any other members. Profiles could be personalized by a design template that became the background of the user's profile, known as a skin. Profiles also included multiple-choice quizzes; polls for their friends to vote in and comment on; photo albums allowing users 96 images per album; blogs with a comments section; a list of bands of which the user was a fan; and a list of groups that the user was a member of. A "Video Box" could also be added, either hot-linked from
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
or copied from a Bebo media content provider's page.
Other features included:
* Lifestream – these changes included uploaded photos, updated flashboxes, and newly added videos and friends. A friend's updates to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and other services could also be viewed, if those friends had linked those accounts to their Bebo profile.
* Bebo Mobile – Bebo launched the mobile version of the site in early 2006, allowing users access to Bebo from a mobile device. In 2007 and 2010, the mobile site had been updated to match the design and features of the full site.
* Bebo Authors – on February 22, 2007, Bebo Authors, also known as Bebo Books, was launched. On this section of the site, authors uploaded chapters of their books and could also get them reviewed with a certain module.
* Bebo Groups – on July 10, 2007, the "Group" module was added to pages. This enabled people to view groups which were previously joined to a school and were also viewable only to school members. Bebo also gave an option to convert existing Authors or Bands to Groups.
* Bebo Chat – a service called Bebo Chat was launched with several other updates in 2011, which allowed users to chat to other users through a
Meebo chat plugin with Bebo branding. Users could also update their 'Saying' and show their availability status, as well as access other links to Bebo's pages and special offers. It also provided a link for users to visit Bebo's fan page on
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...
, where they could 'Like' their page and receive updates.
Bebo system
Bebo runs on servers running the
Resin Server and uses the
Oracle Database system. It is estimated that Bebo had somewhere between 5000 and 8000 Phantom4 servers provided by
Rackable Systems and has over 100 TB of disk space across all of their servers.
Open Media Platform
Announced on the November 13, 2007, Bebo's Open Media Platform is a platform for companies to distribute content to the Bebo community. Content providers can bring their media player to Bebo, and monetize the advertising within it. Each content provider has a specialised page designed for video which showcases any
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia software platform used for production of animations, rich web applications, desktop applications, mobile apps, mobile games, and embedded web browser video players. Fla ...
video content at the top of the profile. Many networks are signed up for the service, including
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
, Sky,
Ustream.tv,
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
and