AOL pays $850 Million for Bebo
AOL have announced their intention to acquired Bebo, one of the popular social media networks, for a reported $850m. The news has caught many analysts off-guard as there has been speculations in the past weeks that TimeWarner may be planning to flog off AOL to the highest bidder.
In the announcement AOL says it will fuse its AIM and ICQ personal communications services with the Bebo network which already has about 40 million members. AOL hopes the deal will propel its services to the forefront of the social media business and take on the likes of MySpace and Facebook.
AOL is confident with deal and Bebo numbers back it up too. Paying $850 million for 40 million members worldwide seems a pretty good deal than $250 million Microsoft paid for 5% stake in Facebook.
“..a total membership of more than 40 million worldwide, Bebo is a global social media network which combines community, self-expression and entertainment to enable its users to consume, create, discover and share content. Bebo is one of the leading social networks in the UK, and is ranked number one in Ireland and New Zealand, and number three in the U.S. Its users are heavily engaged and view an average of 78 pages per usage day. Bebo has approximately 100 employees operating in offices in the UK, San Francisco and Austin, TX…”
