Bebo
Originally one of the first major digital social networks, with later incarnations as instant messaging and video streaming platforms.
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| investor investor | €0.0 | round | |
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$25.0m Valuation: $25.0m | Acquisition | ||
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Bebo was established in January 2005 by the husband-and-wife team, Michael and Xochi Birch, from their San Francisco home. The name was a domain they had purchased, later creating the backronym "Blog Early, Blog Often" to define it. Bebo emerged as an early social networking platform, allowing users to create personal profile pages to share blogs, photos, music, and videos. A key feature was the modular profile design, which allowed for customization without needing HTML knowledge, setting it apart from competitors like MySpace.
The platform experienced rapid growth, particularly in the United Kingdom and Ireland, at one point surpassing MySpace in popularity in the UK with over 10 million unique users. This success culminated in its acquisition by AOL in March 2008 for $850 million. However, under AOL's ownership and facing stiff competition from a rising Facebook, Bebo's user base declined. By 2010, AOL sold the platform to Criterion Capital Partners for around $10 million. The social network struggled to regain its footing and filed for bankruptcy in 2013.
In a remarkable turn of events, Michael and Xochi Birch repurchased Bebo for $1 million in July 2013. This began a series of reinventions. In 2014, the founders relaunched Bebo as a messaging app called Bebo Blab, which focused on avatars and interactive chat. After that venture was shut down, the company pivoted in 2018 into a software provider for organizing and running esports tournaments. This iteration attracted significant interest, leading to its acquisition by Amazon's subsidiary, Twitch, in July 2019 for approximately $25 million. Following the acquisition, the service was integrated into Twitch's operations and the Bebo platform was shut down. Despite a teased relaunch in 2021, Bebo has remained defunct.
Keywords: social networking, Michael Birch, Xochi Birch, AOL acquisition, user profiles, Bebo Blab, esports tournaments, Twitch acquisition, Criterion Capital Partners, Web 2.0, social media history, online community, modular profiles, digital media, internet startups, tech acquisitions, social network decline, platform pivot, brand revival, dot-com boom