Is AOL Trying to Offload Bebo Already?
Posted by Admin
By Musa Aykac
Around Early 2008 AOL, one of the largest internet companies, where about to launch a bid to buy a popular social networking site Bebo, a few weeks later we saw the deal had been finalised for a whopping $850. But now just over 10 months on and rumours are circulating that being would like to sell Bebo for a lot less then they initially purchased it due to under performance.
To be honest it does not really come at too much as a surprise as AOL have not really developed Bebo over the past year, besides that Bebo only really had a hold on the UK market without even creating a dent in the American or global sector.
Let’s have a look at a bit of history regarding Bebo, the site was initially started in January 2008 at the infancy of the social networking bubble. The site is very similar to other social networking sites around but it caught everyone’s attention because social networking was still not recognised by the press and media. Bebo was very simple to use, but to be honest I do not think they had the backing and funding to develop as quickly and prominently as MySpace and Facebook.
The two big daddy social networking sites just grew and grew. I have literally seen this myself. I was an early adopter of Facebook and got in there quite quickly, this being said I did have a Bebo, but over the past few years I have seen people migrate over to Facebook from Bebo and I do not just mean one or two people, more like a handful.
So could Bebo in fact be losing its hold on the UK market as Facebook grows even further? Maybe this is the right time for AOL to sell up as in a few years Bebo could end up being only a memory in peoples mind. We have seen this happen all too often with websites as they come and go out of trends.
AOL have also recently changed there business model to more emphasis on niche editorial sites. So maybe Bebo just does not fit into their portfolio of sites which is said to increase to 100 this year. Whatever happens Bebo needs to be sold (if the rumours are true) to a company that can develop and maintain the site and propel it to a new audience and make it compete with the big guys.
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How to Use Social Networks to Rapidly Build Your Markets…
Posted by Admin
By Geoff Morris
The list of social networks has multiplied over the last year or so. What started out as a few lists to try and get in touch with old friends, or long-lost classmates, has grown into a multi-million dollar industry. For instance, you have Twitter, MySpace, FaceBook, Plaxo, YouTube, and countless others cropping up all of the time.
The trouble is, are they as useful as their owners suggest, or are they just another part of present day society where computers and mobiles phones are taking over so much of our lives, without giving much back in return?
It is all too easy to write off social networks as just another time-wasting activity of kids and teenagers, spending countless hours talking nonsense and small-talk until the early hours rather than using their computers as an aid to their homework.
However, in truth, they are as important a part of modern communications as the phone was half a century ago.
In an ideal world - which is probably the target objective of social networks - not only will they be a superb medium for people to meet and socialise out of their working environment for whatever purpose - be that dating, of any other socialising activity - but there is an unseen power that will shortly be at anybody’s fingertip that will be a boon to keeping a rapidly increasing economy.
In any economy, there is a market for a product or service, and there are consumers of those products or services.
Can you imagine how efficient a marketing based economy would operate, if it were to be possible to have an actual method of describing all products and services available, with a matching table of ready consumers?
That may well be the sort of environment that we are heading towards, but in the mean time, we are slowly and shakily moving towards such a scenario, which at present is far from perfect.
We have a situation today where there are a growing number of social networks available, some purely for socialising - almost like time-filling for kids, and others for users with time to kill- but an increasing number of others who perform a supplier to consumer role, and yet others who perform a business to business role.
The secret is to be able to identify from the ever increasing plethora of social networks, as to which one falls into what category. Choose the wrong one, and whatever you would hope to achieve by using that site will be totally wasted on you.
Choosing the right one to meet your actual needs is very important. Not only would you be able to direct your bulletins towards a clearly identified market, but advertising on such sites would be so highly targeted, that advertising returns would return a fantastically high returns on your investment.
Social networks are here to stay, and as they improve, and identify their purpose more clearly, they have the potential of really ramping up any section of the economy in almost previously unheard of levels of efficiency.
The power of social networks of course, is in its power to spread the word virally. Unlike a sales pitched email, in theory it would only take one satisfied customer to write a short review on his or her social network, and the message is out.
This person may have 47 other contacts, and some of those may have thousands, and so the message could in theory get sent to thousands upon thousands of contacts.
In an era of totally changing buying habits, then social networks can help many suppliers overcome the obstacles of buyers to move away from conventional shopping, towards more and more on-line consumer outlets.
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