AOL might sell Bebo? “Absolutely ridiculous”
Earlier today, TechCrunch UK published a long article detailing how social network Bebo first bamboozled AOL into buying it for $850 million last March, then failed to live up to anywhere near the price tag. The report, based on multiple anonymous sources, concludes that AOL may even be looking at getting rid of Bebo entirely. A Bebo spokesperson tells us the report is "absolutely ridiculous," in part because Bebo is a key part of AOL’s ongoing plans to expand its reach on the web.
Bebo launched a new interface called "Social Inbox" last December that lets you read multiple email accounts and social web services (Twitter, Flickr, etc.) within a central interface. It also integrates AOL’s AIM instant message service so you could see status messages from friends on the site. We’ve separately been hearing that AOL is looking at building an instant-message protocol aggregator, not unlike Meebo’s CommunityIM service. While AOL’s IM plans are in the early stages, we’ve heard, Bebo tells me today that it is "really pleased" with how Social Inbox is going. Bebo says it will have more announcements on the product front later this month (so later this week, I guess?) as well as in March.
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