San Francisco based Bebo popped a few bottles of champagne and announced a very healthy $15 million round of financing, led by Benchmark Capital. Bebo is one of the largest and fastest growing social networks, with 24 million users and 2.5 billion page views per month.
More from PaidContent and Jeff Clavier.
This is a deeply funded market niche. Market leader Myspace is owned by News Corp. Facebook is funded to the hilt. Friendster is backed by Kleiner Perkins (and Benchmark before the recap). Newcomer Tagworld raised a healthy $7.5 million from DFJ. And tagged, focused on much younger audiences, raised $7m from Mayfield.
Bebo is focusing on non-U.S. growth, particularly the UK. That makes a lot of sense. The U.S. market is completely saturated between Myspace and Facebook.
Update: Jeff Clavier has a post that clarifies Bebo’s numbers.
Good for them. I never heard of them even once, so that’s great news for them.
I’m not sure I agree that the market is saturated here in the U.S. There is still plenty of room for smaller niche social networking sites and there are still a few other general SN sites out there such as MyYearBook.com and Multiply.com that have a decent user base and are seeing very healthy growth.
However I agree with Bebo’s strategy to focus on non-US growth because there is more room for opportunity.
-Brian
http://www.SocialDegree.com
It is interesting that in the UK, this is taking off better than free money!
If I am right in thinking, it is the ability with bebo to create online communities around bricks and mortar institutions such as workplaces, but in particular schools (a bit like the incredibly successful friendsreunited.com) that is making it so popular.
The largest selling UK newspaper, the noritiously conservative Daily Mail has already run a double-page spread on the risk of allowing their kids to use it (as well as myspace!) so no doubt this is going to massively boost subscriber numbers.
Where Bebo will gain compared to say myspace, is in this ability to bring together already existing communities online. Users already know other users so establishing oneself will be less of hassle as it would with myspace for example.
Yeah, Bebo is big in the UK. I’ve been told that it’s set to overtake MySpace later this year in terms of popularity:
http://mashable...ernatives-bebo/
It’s pretty much a crossover between Facebook and MySpace – all based around schools and colleges/universities. Interestingly, their video is provided by VideoEgg.
I find it interesting to see that Bebo is trying to integrate well established technology players (VideoEgg and Skype) instead of trying to develop everything inhouse (i.e. MySpace IM, etc.).
Would be fun to see a round-up here on TechCrunch on the biggest players and what the sweet spot is of each. I have never used Bebo before and was surprised to hear how many users they have.
I see streakr.com that you reported on a few months ago is invite only, looks like they’ll be entering the market soon too…that space seems to be getting hotter…
Ahh, bebo, the anti-christ of social networks.
The amount of e-mails I receive from Bebo’s viral marketting is disguistingly annoying!
Interestingly, to follow up from Brian’s post (#2), that compared to the US, the UK is dramamtically underserved with community-style sites. The only well-known sites are friendsreunited.com (where old school friends catch up!) and myspace.
Admittedly, online has few barriers to creating friendships apart from geography but the ability to generate further strong links between members by allowing a local connection is surely going to be a web-wide winner as long as it continues its localised angle.
Yesterday, Bebo was mentioned in an article on Digg:
http://digg.com...Year,_For_Teens
It makes me think about the nature of the MySpace/Bebo/Facebook community. If the number one demographic of these sites are teens, then what happens as they grow up? Teens are notoriously fickle, and not known for their loyalty. Does this continually leave room for yet another social networking site to edge their way into the space? A cooler one, one with more street cred?
Bebo is amazingly popular in the UK. At one point, the owner, or someone, of Bebo came onto BBC Breakfast to describe social networking. Apparently it’s the UK’s biggest social networking site.
No-one I know knows of MySpace or Orkut.
What do Bebo, MySpace, Facebook, Tagworld and tagged have in common? They aim at the Anglosphere.
http://en.wikip...iki/Anglosphere
There are lots of emerging markets the different social networking sites could be interested in:
China, India, Mexico, Russia, Eastern Europe, Turkey, Pakistan, Brazil, South America.
http://en.wikip...merging_markets
does anyone know if these numbers are being audited at all. Are 24 million people really viewing 104 pages on Bebo per month?
“does anyone know if these numbers are being audited at all. Are 24 million people really viewing 104 pages on Bebo per month?”
Yes, and Santa Claus is real
It’s a shame it would so difficult to change over from MySpace to other (less horribly designed) sites, only because doing that would involve persuading everyone I know that it was worth their while to move over to Bebo which, unfortunately, won’t happen.
If Bebo wants to succeed outside of the US, they need to capture significant momentum in the UK (as they are doing) and in Germany. Outside of those 2 markets, and short of going to Japan/Korea where the bar for product features, functionality and design is way higher than in most western markets, they will have a tough time monetizing whatever traffic they get, no matter how impressive it is.
The challenge for all the social networking sites in the US has been to convert the eyeballs into dollars. Even the undisputed domestic market leader, MySpace, with billions of page views in the largest advertising market in the world, does a relatively poor job of deriving revenue from the site visits. An even tougher job awaits the winners in the international markets.
This shows that VC money is not flowing into other more innovative concepts.
Bebo is just another effort to get many eyeballs and make money fast.
Are the next googles and skypes getting funded at all?
It may be big in the UK. It’s absolutely *enormous* in Ireland.
There are a lot of regional Social Networking sites popping up. Friendster has a huge following in the Phillipines. I have not spent much time on bebo, but I keep hearing their name pop up. All i can say is….Good Luck…. Every article I read seems to pull a new player into the game. The reality is that only time will tell. I personally think AOL’s new Social Networking site will kill a lot of these little guys.
____________________________________________________________
Are YOU a Lost Cherry? Find yourself at LostCherry.com. I did: http://www.lostcherry.com/john
We put the social networking feature into the Go BIG Network (http://www.goBIGnetwork.com) and applied it to how entrepreneurs (like the ones that I’m sure read TechCrunch) connect with each other.
It’s been especially useful for people to find stuff like a Java programmer for a particular job or an angel investor for a startup. It’s worked incredibly well.
When you start to break social newtorking down into particular interest groups that can use the functionality to improve communication and do more business, it becomes more interesting. In our case, applying it specifically to the startup ecosystem has proven to be real effective. I think along those lines you’ll see quite a few startups pull out chunks of a social network and build a community around a particular focus.
I really dont’ think AOl’s new sns will kill what you call the little guys. 24 million users is hardly little. I personally thing AOL has nothing new or exciting to offer in this market.
I am new to this whole 2.0 thing but it seems evertime I read this Calcanis person’s name, he’s acting like a bufoon.
please will you add me to your msn thing plz byeeee xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
i fink dat bebo is gr8 but ma teachers at ma skool are tryin to ban it and are tryin to make us delete our bebo accounts which is out of oreder
how do i get on bebo
There are two things that must take the blame for the state of this world. Computers and mobile phones. What has it come to when we no longer communicate face to face and everything that is said is written in a text or an e-mail. Whatever happened to community spirit? Even when I grew up and I’m only 23, neighbours used to talk to each other, now they don’t look each other in the eye. Social networking comes when you get out and meet people, not sitting in front of a computer waiting for that e-mail. Bebo is for the introverts not to mention it being a haven for stalkers and paedophiles.
So, what are you doing tonight? Will it be a thoughtful bottle of wine and then round to friends for a chat or another boring night of lonliness in front of tv or computer.
Think about it.
get a lyf cammy!!!!!!!!! bebo roks hard.
it does but some bad things happen too
bebo is big here in New Zealand too.
Every teen has one but some of the things that happens on bebo is not very nice for instance people leaving nasty messages on others pages.
don’t forget that some people don’t alway’s tell the truth about who they are and the internet is a bad way to met people as you are not always told the truth.