Part three of my lovely list of social networks. Again I must give credit to Beth Jones, for helping me with this one.
The next social networking site on the list has to be Bebo. In March it was bought by AOL for $850 million! It is described as the ‘next generation high school and college social network’. Similar to Myspace and Facebook, it allows users to upload videos, photos, write blogs, read blogs, add applications and discover new interests. With 40 million users (or so the company claims) and 11 billion page views it isn’t hard to see why AOL would want to snap up this reasonably new company, (it was originally launched in 2005).
AOL plans to marry ICQ and AIM with a proper social network, hence layering in Bebo. They say it “lets people communicate both synchronously and asynchronously. The goal is to allow people to both express themselves and extend existing relationships.” AOL is clearly putting a massive effort into transforming the company from a dial up broadband provider into a company that has the competitive fire. The opening of AIM, mentioned above, is just one indication.
As a new user of Bebo here’s my take on the good points and bad points…
· Very easy to navigate around the site – all the areas are very clearly labelled so no need to be a technical genius.
· Extra information on home page such as new movie releases with link to trailer and comments by users.
· Music section is clear and easy to navigate, similar to MySpace (better than Facebook as it can be tricky to search for solely music related pages), has sample tracks, can preview all songs on album and link to download whole album at a cost.
· It’s a great way for new artists to get their music heard. However, for users wanting to listen to their favourite artists MySpace is more comprehensive as there appears to be a limited number of artists signed up to Bebo. For example, as Beth Jones is an avid fan of drum and bass the relevant section under the Music heading, only listed 20 artists/groups are registered, none of which she recognised, mainly because they are up and coming artists from overseas.
· Hundreds of applications which can offer fun for a range of interests from football teams to charities. Some good applications such as design your own greeting card which allows you to upload photos and decide the layout, etc.
· Good links to mobile phones – text alerts about new comments, mail and friends sayings. Uploads to profile from mobile could be very useful – able to send photos via MMS directly to your mobile and able to post comments and blogs via SMS. The ‘how to use’ demo makes it very simple for new users.
The best thing about Bebo is the very easy to use application to upload straight from your mobile. I think this could be a really useful tool, particularly when travelling so your mobile phone memory space is not an issue, and the guide explains exactly how to use each application so even technophobes need not be afraid.
The only thing I came across on Bebo that struck me as pointless is the Bebo nation feature. It’s a giant map covered in users photos which they have to pay to upload (albeit only $0.10, but still…) just seems a little unnecessary to me. It leads me to think there is yet another tool for fatuous self promotion, but then again this is a site for kids and students so each to their own. This brings me onto my last point of the videos. They are all well and good in many respects, many made me laugh out loud, yet I came across a few that worried me slightly.
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