bebo

Bebo doesn't just want to be that social network that AOL bought--it also wants to be a hub for entertainment.

The site, now part of the Time Warner unit's "People Networks" division, has appointed the London-based Kelly Brett as its head of original productions.

Brett had last worked on KateModern, a Bebo-hosted video series created by Lonelygirl15 production company Eqal (then known as LG15 Productions), and she also counts projects for television networks like the BBC, Sky, and ITV on her resume.

The youth-oriented Bebo, with most of its popularity concentrated in the United Kingdom … Read more

In its quest to fight Facebook for every last social networking digit and dollar, Bebo is thinking big. Very big.

The social networking site has got together with the Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics of the Russian Academy of Science to organize for 500 messages to be beamed to a planet orbiting the star Gliese 581c.

The project's title is A Message From Earth.

Apparently the planet in question is the nearest one to earth that might have water. Which means it might have life. And, well, Bebo would be a great name for a planet, wouldn't … Read more

Here's the controversy in a single sentence.

A woman in the UK, who has a rather nice $8million house in Spain, is suing several newspapers because they printed information that they found on Bebo about a party held at the house, information that turned out to be false, even though it was put there by the woman's daughter, Jodie.

As far as I can twig it, Amanda Hudson is claiming that the information her daughter freely placed on Bebo, describing the party as seven shades of raucous, was intended for private use only and was not for rebroadcast … Read more

Don't believe everything you read on Bebo.

That's the message an angry mother is sending by suing six U.K. newspapers that lifted a story off social-networking site Bebo about her daughter's supposed wild party.

The Bebo invite promised the "party of the year," for the teenager's 16th birthday. Subsequent posts on Jodie Hudson's Bebo account spoke of underage drinking, sex acts, and violence that occurred at the celebration.

Several newspapers ran the story, along with pictures lifted from Jodie Hudson's Bebo account, alleging that 400 partying teens responded to the Bebo … Read more

A follow-up to my previous post on Qbox: they fixed whatever was preventing the player from playing songs embedded in MySpace pages, and I can now happily recommend it anybody who frequently listens to music on MySpace, Bebo, or YouTube.

A quick recap: the Qbox Web site lets you conduct searches for artists across MySpace, Bebo, and YouTube simultaneously. When results appear, you click a small play button on the Web page and the Qplayer launches and begins playing the song or video. You can conduct other searches and add them to your currently playing list, mixing audio and video … Read more

Fighting the common wisdom that it's tough to make money off a social-network application, AOL announced Monday that it will guarantee CPM revenues to developers on Facebook and Bebo's platforms if they opt to use its Platform-A ad technology. If a developer pulls in three unique ad impressions, AOL will pay an undisclosed flat fee.

"Advertiser interest in social networks is rising at a steady rate, and Platform-A is making an unprecedented flat-fee commitment to help application developers generate revenue and guarantee monetization of their applications," Dave Jacobs, Platform-A's senior vice president of publisher services, … Read more

At the many advertising conferences dotting Internet Week New York this week, speakers and panelists have been exhorting the ad industry to start thinking more creatively when it comes to tackling digital media--even creating elaborate branded series in lieu of traditional commercials.

They weren't the only ones who got that memo. Record label Universal Music Group's Universal Music U.K. announced Monday that it's partnered with social network Bebo to broadcast a series called The Secret World of Sam King: one part video blog, one part Choose Your Own Adventure, and one part Universal advertorial. It's … Read more

Update: Qbox seems to have fixed the problem, and songs from MySpace now play fine within the Qplayer. See my updated post here.

With the Web allowing any artist to present music to the masses, listeners are less likely to distinguish between the local band they saw down the street and major label acts they heard on the radio. Of course listeners know the difference, but they don't care--they want to be able to flip between all the music they're interested in without hunting each song down on a particular Web site. Unfortunately, local artists with limited resources … Read more

Angel Gambino, the Bebo executive in charge of attracting record labels and musicians to the site, has resigned and she appears to be part of an executive exodus at the company following its $850 million acquisition by AOL.

Gambino, Bebo's global vice president of music and content, follows Bebo's founders Michael and Xochi Birch out the door. A source close to the situation said that at least two other Bebo managers are considering a departure.

Some critics of AOL's deal have worried that Bebo's teen audience may be turned off if the site becomes too buttoned-down … Read more