AOL Says Bye Bye Bebo
No one likes a mistake and if that mistake was worth $850 million, the it's a gigantic mistake.
Two years ago, AOL acquired social network Bebo for $850 million, and today, sent a message to employees stating that it “is not in a position” to support Bebo, according to PaidContent.
AOL will now either sell Bebo or simply shut it down.
“The strategy we set in May 2009 leverages our core strengths and scale in quality content, premium advertising and consumer applications, positioning us for the next phase of growth of the Internet. As we evaluate our portfolio of brands against our strategy, it is clear that social networking is a space with heavy competition, and where scale defines success. 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 is committed to working quickly to determine if there are any interested parties for Bebo and the company’s current expectation is to complete our strategic evaluation by the end of May 2010.”
Despite reported growth early on, AOL was clearly looking to back out of this move as reported by Mashable. Whether or not Bebo is snatched up remains to be seen.
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