AOL social network subsidiary Bebo.com has named a new head of global operations, Stephane Panier.  Panier will be responsible for scaling the social network’s media operations and advancing the global reach of the service.  Currently Bebo has 24 million users around the world.  Panier was previously the VP and COO of Bebo.  Panier will be reporting to Jon Brod, the EVP of AOL Ventures.

Before joined Bebo in January 2009, Panier worked at Google for 6 years in finance and operations positions.  “Stephane is a proven strategist and operator with executive experience from some of the world’s leading brands and businesses,” stated Brod. “He is the ideal leader to build on Bebo’s existing successes, to chart a course for its future, and to execute against that vision.”

Joanna Shields was an EVP and the President of People Networks at AOL.  She came to the company through AOL’s acquisition of Bebo.  Shields plans to move back to London and pursue other entrepreneurial interests.  Shields was President of Bebo at the time of the acquisition.

This announcement comes at a time where AOL is preparing to spin off from Time Warner as an independent, public company.  When Bebo was acquired for $850 million, they were a much smaller social network than MySpace and Facebook.  MySpace was acquired for $580 million back in July 2005 and Facebook is planning for an IPO several years down the road.

Below is the memo that Joanna left to her team at AOL:
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AOL sent out a press release today stating that Virgin Media has joined the Open Mobile initiative set up by Bebo, the social network that was acquired for $850 million in March 2008.  The Open Mobile initiative is a way for mobile operators, developers, and manufacturing companies to build mobile versions of the Bebo social networks with their brand on it.

As part of the agreement, Virgin will be creating the Bebo Open Mobile Internet website with Virgin’s brand on it and they will also be putting bookmarks for Bebo on the pre-releases of their devices.  Virgin customers will be able to easily access Bebo’s mobile services right out of the box.

“Virgin Media’s decision to embed Bebo in their customer experience plays to both of our strengths and joins two great brands. In partnership with Virgin Media, we will be able to deliver great mobile content to more users in the UK,” stated Sean Kane, VP of Mobile at AOL People Networks.

[via gomonews]

As of 2006 about 44.3 million Hispanics live in the U.S.  That is about 15% of the total population.  Bebo wants to capitalize on that by launching a Bebo portal for Latinos living in the U.S.  Media partners involved in this project include Hearst and AOL Latino.  The Bebo U.S. Latino website will have the latest in music, entertainment, videos, photos, polls, quizzes, surveys, and other content that is syndicated from MisQuinceMag.com.

“Expanding into new markets is a key pillar of our growth strategy, and we see huge potential for the growing Latino audience in the U.S. Our platform allows users to connect with other users, entertainment and brands, both globally and locally. The richness of our experience lies in the user’s ability to express him or herself – as evidenced in our new Lifestory feature – and in the ability to connect to people, media and brands through the Lifestream and our Open Media Platform,” stated Nicole Vanderbilt, VP of the International division at Bebo.

The launch of this new protal was made in conjunction with AOL’s new Spanish language resource guide TecnoPadres.com.  Advertising for the new portal will be provided by AOL’s Platform A division.  The full press release is available after the jump.

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AOL social network Bebo has announced that they have launched Bebo Open Mobile.  Bebo Open Mobile is a platform for mobile companies to build a device-compatible version of the social network.  Bebo plans to work with mobile operators, handset manufacturing companies, and mobile software developers.  Bebo has about 50 million users.

“Bebo Open Mobile is a new way to expand the power of social networking to program members,” stated Bebo Global Head of Mobile Sean Kane. “The Bebo Open Mobile suite of tools is designed to move mobile communication and user relationships forward by delivering a simple and more ubiquitous experience to users. A rapid and global shift towards mobile social networking consumption is in progress and Bebo is committed to leading the way.”

The tools that Bebo has released include Bebo Open Mobile Internet, Bebo Open Mobile Messaging, and Bebo Open Mobile Development API.  Bebo is a part of AOL’s People Network unit.  AOL’s People Networks unit includes Bebo, AIM, ICQ, Goowy Media, Yedda, and SocialThing!  People Networks has about 94 million users worldwide.  To join Bebo Open Mobile, e-mail openmobile@beboinc.com.

Michael Birch, co-founder of Bebo sold his social network to Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX) subsidiary AOL for £420 million (converts to $850 million) this past year. After the deal was closed, Birch has been quietly working with Edward Baker on a new start-up called Wordia. Wordia is going to be a video dictionary website that will operate similarly to Wikipedia.

The site will be officially launched on September 18. Birch sent out the following invitation to their family and friends:
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The King of Pop, Michael Jackson has launched an social network game application to promote his new album, King of Pop.  The new album is set to release on August 25.  The dance game application is available on Facebook, MySpace, and Bebo.  Jackson’s fans will be able to win prizes.  The gaming application allows users to control Michael’s dance moves.

Prizes will be awarded to the highest scores every hour and per day.  Hourly winners will get ringtones and daily winners will get iPod Nanos.  The top 5 highest scorers on each social network then make it to the next level.  The next level is when the top scorers face off against each other.  Two of the players will get plane tickets to go around the world.  Or the winners will get a Sony Bravia 32″ TV and a PS3.  Sony BMG partnered with GMTV and the Sun newspaper for this competition.

The application will be available starting tomorrow.

In the first social network and movie production deal of it’s kind, Paramount has partnered with Bebo.  Paramount movie, “Angus, Thongs, And Perfect Snogging” (ATPS) will be rolled into Bebo web drama, “Sofia’s Diary.”  Georgia Nicolson, character of ATPS will be appearing in two episodes of Sofia’s Diary. 

In Sofia’s Bebo profile, she inteviews Georgia to find out why teenagers are obsessed with Georgia’s life.  Sofia then starts watching Georgia’s video blog posts and interviews others through the Bebo messaging service.  Before the deal happened, Georgia’s profile was created to allow users to get to know her. 

MeC Interaction is the advertising agency that brought Bebo and Paramount together.  “A format such as ‘Sofia’s Diary’ offers a unique opportunity for advertisers and consumers to engage on this level because they can’t do this on television,” stated Carl Reid, account director at MeC.

AOL acquired Bebo for $850 million in cash 5 months ago.

Related Links:
1. Bebo.com
2. Paramount.com
2. InformationWeek

“We got involved in an exciting and competitive investment in Bebo because we believed in the social networking space and the fact that Bebo was positioned for exponential growth,” stated Barry Maloney, a partner at Balderton.  “Our expectations for Bebo have been exceeded in a relatively short period of time, and today’s transaction with AOL has delivered an exceptional return on our original investment in 2006.”

The venture capital firm, Balderton Capital has sold off their shares of Bebo to AOL today.  The amount that they will earn from the deal is $140 million.  This is about 9 times the return on investment that they made into the social network 2 years ago.  Balderton plugged in $15 million to Bebo in May 2006.  Balderton also invested in MySQL, which sold to Sun Microsystems for $1 billion.

Balderton is based in London, England.  Balderton also invested in Betfair, Codemasters, Habbo Hotel, Setanta Sports.  Balderton used to be the European arm of Benchmark Capital.

AOL annouced today that they are acquiring Bebo, the third largest social network after Myspace and Facebook with 40 Million users.

“Bebo will be the cornerstone of our strategy to transform the online experience for advertisers, media companies and consumers.”

said Randy Falco, AOL’s chairman and chief executive, during a conference call today.
It’s interesting to note the price comparison to number one social network, Myspace, sold for only $580 million. AOL recently released AIM 2.0 which contains many social aspects built on top of their already popular instant messaging software. Seeing how they involve their current properties, AIM and ICQ, into Bebo will show wether AOL is seriously making a move back towards it’s social roots when AOL was one of the most widely used services of the dial up era.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2275828,00.asp

The rumor mill for a Bebo acquisition is flooding again.  TechCrunch announced today that Bebo was acquired for a rumored $1 billion.  “A high level source has told us that Bebo has been in discussions via their investment bank, Allen & Co., with a number of potential buyers, and says that the company signed a deal on Monday to be acquired,” wrote TechCrunch founder, Michael Arrington.

Arrington also followed up by saying that the second largest UK-based social network either actually signed the deal or sent out wrong messages about it.  But given the reputation of their investment bank, the latter seems unlikely.

The buyer is unknown, but there are a lot of guesses out there: Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, CBS, Viacom, Comcast, etc.  Who is your guess?  My guess is that it wasn’t Microsoft wasn’t it since they already plugged $240 million into Facebook.  Google already has Orkut, but Bebo could be their way of penetrating the European market.  Viacom could use Bebo as a means of connecting MTV watchers.   I doubt Comcast would spend $1 billion when their market cap is about $52 billion.  Yahoo! is acquiring a few companies here and there, but judging by their layoffs from earlier today, they don’t want to spend such a large amount right now.

Google seems like the most likely buyer.  Google could somehow integrate Orkut, YouTube, and Bebo together.  And that would be interesting.

DIGG
The acquisitions that Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft, and eBay have made over the last year has made
things a lot more interesting. Between these 4 companies, they have acquired social networks and VoIP technologies that have banking companies swooning just like they were in the late 90’s and early 2000’s.

During Digg’s tenure as a Web 2.0 company, they have received over $10 million in funding. Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg has also been working on a couple of other start-ups, Revision3 and Pownce. Rumor has it that Digg CEO, Jay Adelson has hired Allen and Company, an investment banking firm to broker a deal worth $300 million or more in the form of an acquisition. Rumor also has is that InterActivCorp is one of the leading interested parties in an acquisition.

In my opinion, I think Digg is great property for an acquisition. But for the amount that they are looking for seems a little stretched. I think this because I feel that Digg users seem rather unstable and are constantly being tampered with. In the last couple of years, Digg has removed the listing of their top users, created a new social network that involves “Shouting Out” stories to other users (which seems more like spam to me), and even saw a major user revolt late April/early May 2007 (remember 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56…. controversy?). Digg gives a lot of control to the end user which can be a strength, but can also be a major weakness. Digg users tend to be sensitive and over-express it when they feel like Kevin Rose/ Digg isn’t acting like “one of the people.”

Will Digg see an acquisition soon? So far it’s only speculation since there have been multiple opportunities for Digg to become acquired.

BEBO
Social network, Bebo is also rumored to have hired a bank in order to either raise a substantial amount of funding or for an acquisition. Bebo reports that they have more than 40 million total users, of which 12 million are active in the UK and Ireland. Traffic has doubled since last year for Bebo. I picked up the rumor from VentureBeat.

Bebo is also working with Google on OpenSocial, an open-source developer platform to let third parties create applications on their own social network, similar to Facebook Applications. Bebo has reportedly seen itself being courted for an acquisition before, but none that have gauged its interest of a price-tag above $1 billion.

Social networks are a hot commodity, but with other social networks like MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, Hi5, and Orkut, the market is just becoming more saturated. Brokering such a deal through a bank will be challeging given today’s market.

The success of one of YouTube’s most beloved fictitious characters by the screen name of Bree, otherwise known as LonelyGirl15 and whose real name is Jessica Rose has inspired a spin-off.  This new series is expected to be about a 19 year old British college student, her friends, and the events that revolve around their lives including relationships.  This new series is expected to hit the pages of social network, Bebo by July of this year.

“We’re definitely excited,” stated Miles Beckett, a member of the LonelyGirl15 team.  Other members of the team includeGreg Goodfried and Mesh Flanders.  “As Bree would say, we’re really, really, really, really, really, really excited!”

LonelyGirl15 has won a series of awards including the prestigous #1 Web Celeb of the Year by Forbes Magazine. 

Because the creators were not making any money with the YouTube series until recent product placements were noticed, they are relieved to have a paid deal with Bebo.  The amount is undisclosed.  Product placement will also be integrated in the upcoming KateModern videos.

Bebo.com has 31 million users and is popular mostly in the United Kingdom.

Bebo, the UK-based, band-oriented social network just announced that they would be including ads in the profiles of their users. The plus side of this new revenue-making scheme is that users can make ads appear on their website optionally and to a certain extent, the users can even choose what type of ads to include in their profiles. I’ve never heard of an advertising scheme like this. The ads will be in the form of embeddable widgets.

The ads also will predominantly be in the form of interactive games, possibly similar to “Punch the Monkey.” AdWeek states that “Advertiser applications will get a featured spot in the Bebo Widgets gallery.” Jim Scheinman, a VP of Sales and Development for Bebo calls this coined this iniative as “engagement marketing.”

“If it’s great content, it’s going to engage the user so much more,” stated Scheinman. “To the Beboer, they don’t look at it like advertising but great content.”

The first advertiser application for Bebo is a ’stop smoking’ campaign by the American Legacy Foundation. Bebo plans to release many more advertiser applications at the beginning of the year.

Although Bebo does not have as much of a marketshare of social networking compared to MySpace, Bebo has a huge presence in the United Kingdom. In November 2006, Bebo had about 1.4 million unique visitors according to Nielsen/NetRatings. Scheinman hopes to have 30 million users by the end of 2007.

There will be a separate profile for advertisements for users to select various options. In the first six weeks, over 200,000 members have filled out these ad profiles. The users know how important ads are for the social network to be able to run. “They understand we need to do the advertising to pay for the service,” stated Scheinman.