AOL & www.bebo.com

Facebook, Myspace, Xanga. We’ve all been through these stages, where we at some point in our lives decide to join one of these online clubs. While many Korean youngsters have opted for the more Koreanized “Cyworld”, many westerners have chosen www.bebo.com . Ranking third in the “most popular social networking website” list, www.bebo.com (blog early, blog often) is a fast growing social website that offers users a platform to communicate their life stories and share their sentiments in this internet age.
AOL (America Online) run by Time Warner and headquartered in New York has recently acquired www.bebo.com. The internet service provider AOL has steadily been dropping in value to which it’s executives answered back by acquiring www.bebo.com . Plunging into the social networking industry AOL is trying to raise its value by opening to a younger internet oriented audience.
Aiming for the ad dollars, AOL’s attempt to compete in this industry has its ups and downs.
I personally have joined a few of these online social sites. Most of my friends have joined one or more of these blog sites also. In fact I have not taken a survey or anything of such, but one can be pretty much assured that over 90% of the whole Handong population is a member of a social networking site. There is a massive amount of people who surf around the internet and a big portion of these people have a blog or some sort of online social networking site. I imagine the ad dollars that these websites receive must be immense.
In light of this, AOL has made a good decision in acquiring bebo. Ranking third most popular out of these online social clubs, ads will definitely be observed. However sources say that although www.bebo.com ranks third in this industry, it only has 1.18% of the market share. Meaning that yes, a lot of people are consumers of these online services, however, are using sites other than www.bebo.com. To this problem www.bebo.com must differentiate, offering its consumers something better or new. Maybe a new addition or a new design. Maybe a new concept or an innovative idea that targets computer users who are not members of www.bebo.com. Adding games, or using an interface that would appeal to gamers. Who knows? Maybe even making it into a more interactive site, in which the user could totally plunge into by role playing and creating a fantasy of their own in a more realistic setting than pre fabricated games.

20100656