bebo

Chinese social network QQ outperforms Facebook & Co.

I just returned from a trip to Shanghai, and in case you didn't know anyway, here's my No. 1 insight: China scales.

Let's take QQ.com as an example, the leading Chinese online social network. The site is reported to have more than 300 million active accounts. That is eight times the member base of Facebook--and it's the same size as the U.S. population.

What's also remarkable (and different from the Western social networks) is QQ's monetization. Facebook posted revenue of $150 million for 2007 (and according to Plus8star a loss of $50 million); … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 688: I like your photos

I like that photo of you that you posted on Facebook. You know, the private one? Yeah. I saw it. It was pretty cool, although I'd never wear that T-shirt again if I were you. In other news, Netflix DVDs are coming late! The end of the world is nigh! Also, the DOJ approves the XM-Sirius merger and Sony BMG wants to get on your iPod in a decidedly nonrootkit way. Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 688

Netflix glitch to delay deliveries http://www.news.com/newsblog/8301-10784_3-9902294-7.html

XM, Sirius move closer to improbable merger http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120638514923860085.html … Read more

Web app turns social network members into authors

The book's opening line is: "Helen has just registered on Facebook."

Sentence two, if it gets enough votes by Facebook users, would be: "Friends have been telling her for a long time to do this, but for some reason she had continually postponed this moment. Why? She could not answer this question exactly."

The rest is up to online wordsmiths who choose to install a community book-writing application called LiveBook, launched on Tuesday by both Facebook and the Bebo social network.

In a sort of Exquisite Corpse game for the Web 2.0 set, LiveBook, … Read more

Facebook ignores OpenSocial, embraces Windows Live Contacts API

Now that Yahoo has finally and officially signed on to the OpenSocial API bandwagon (see Techmeme), the company that Microsoft might buy has joined with MySpace.com and Google to create the OpenSocial Foundation. Facebook is still missing in action, considering whether joining the OpenSocial Foundation is in the best interests of its membership--or its own platform.

OpenSocial provides a useful piece of functionality, solving a developer problem by allowing applications developed with the APIs to run on different services without modification--write once, play many. A photo-sharing application could tap into the social graphs of Orkut, Bebo, MySpace, Ning, or … Read more

Windows Live teams up with social networks for contact portability

Robert Scoble couldn't do it, but Windows Live can.

Microsoft's Web-app division announced Tuesday that it has partnered with five social networks--LinkedIn, Tagged, Hi5, Bebo, and yes, Facebook--on a new project to facilitate address book portability. The partner social networks have agreed to use the Windows Live Contacts API so that members can import Windows Live contacts to their respective sites, as part of the new data-portability strategy that Microsoft outlined at its Mix conference earlier this month.

In return, Microsoft has launched Invite2Messenger, a new service for users of those social networks so that they … Read more

AOL's Bebo buy was controversial among execs, blog reports

Not everyone at AOL was in favor of plunking down $850 million for social network Bebo, the Silicon Alley Insider reported Thursday.

Citing anonymous sources, editor Henry Blodget said a number of senior managers at the struggling dot-com thought--and still think--that Bebo won't turn out to be an ad revenue treasure trove.

Executives at several key AOL divisions, including Advertising.com, the Platform-A ad network, and the Userplane chat software product, were not consulted on the acquisition, according to Blodget's sources. "Our sources believe that Ron (Grant, chief operating officer of AOL), at least, was aware that … Read more

AOL-Bebo: What the Web's saying

Glancing at the many blog posts about AOL's unexpected acquisition of social network Bebo, there's no real consensus as to whether it's a smart idea. If anything, the collective mood of the Web's talking heads seems to be thus: if AOL can smoothly integrate Bebo with its AIM client and Platform-A ad network, great. Unfortunately, AOL doesn't have that kind of track record.

Perhaps the most optimistic of the bunch was CenterNetworks blogger Allen Stern, who said that this really can't be bad for AOL's advertising arm. "It brings their ad inventory for Platform-A … Read more

Forget Yahoo, Microsoft should acquire AOL

After today's announcement that AOL has acquired Bebo for $850 million in the hopes that it will be able to capitalize on the upswing in social networking, I had a thought. Knowing that AOL is trying to get a deal done with Yahoo and the company owns some solid properties, why doesn't Microsoft forget about Yahoo for a while and acquire AOL?

Sound crazy? If so, consider the fact that AOL has quickly become one of the largest competitors to Microsoft in its attempt to acquire Yahoo and at the same time, it's barely standing on the backs of sound editorial content from Weblogs, Inc. and now, social networking -- two areas Microsoft currently has no influence in.

In essence, the deal for AOL would be a good one for Microsoft and could actually help it in its negotiations for Yahoo. Here's why:… Read more

Buy Bebo? Better to just dump AOL

Why does AOL have a thing for acquiring companies with silly names? (Last month, it bought widget maker Goowy.

My colleague Dan Farber weighed in earlier Thursday on whether Bebo can "save" AOL, a question that remains impossible to answer in the near term.

Truth be told, I've compiled a stack of old magazine articles since the turn of the century (I love saying that phrase) detailing the "challenge at hand" for, first, the merged AOL Time Warner and then Time Warner, which dropped AOL from its moniker in 2003. At a certain point, however, … Read more