dingostew.com

AOL plans to either sell or shutdown Bebo in 2010, according to a company-wide memo.

The memo comes just two years after AOL splashed out a sizeable $850 million on the social-networking site, which has struggled to make headway against the rapidly growing Facebook and Twitter.

"It is clear that social networking is a space with heavy competition, and where scale defines success," the company said.



"Bebo, unfortunately, is a business that has been declining and, as a result, would require significant investment in order to compete in the competitive social networking space. AOL is not in a position at this time to further fund and support Bebo in pursuing a turnaround in social networking."

AOL has claimed the fate of Bebo and its 40 employees will be decided by the end of May. There's no word on what will become of the data stored on Bebo's servers.

The decision follows AOL's spinoff from parent company Time Warner, and the company acknowledged that "we are in a turnaround and that we need to get the company as focused as possible."

Bebo had tried to reposition itself as a content delivery platform with shows like Sofia's Diary and The Gap Year funded by product placement and sponsorship. This has been surpassed by Facebook's trade in virtual items through casual gaming which is turning into a multi-billion dollar revenue stream for the company.



Read more: http://www.techcentral.ie/article.aspx? ... z0kYoCq1Cv

I know I'm gona have to get all my pics off it before it shuts down!! I've hundreds on it!!

every time i mention this to someone, thats what they say! its purely just the photos that any cares about.

hopefully they'll have a feature where you can download them in bulk! shouldnt be too hard to code but it all depends on if they could be arsed or not.

ppsssch boys wouldn't get that coz most don't take many photos!!

i never understood why women take so many photos though! most of them are for facebook and bebo anyway. As in "hey, lets take a photo for me to stick up on facebook/bebo!".
If facebook and bebo didnt exist, would the same level of photographs be taken? i think not.

I was actually watching an episode of "How I Met Your Mother" last night where it was Lillys birthday and she kept making them get group photos. The photos were all happy and stuff but they were all fighting and only put smiles on for the photo and Ted was whinging coz the photos were so faked. I reckon the same can be applied for 99% of drunken photos that get put on social networking sites! So whats the point?

Fair enough if theres a major event on or something big happens, but if its just a bunch of people on the piss, wheres the need for a photograph then?