Bebo (/ ˈbiːboʊ / BEE-boh) was an American social networking website that originally operated from 2005 until its bankruptcy in 2013. The site relaunched several times after its bankruptcy with a number of short-lived offerings, including instant messaging and video streaming, until its acquisition by Amazon in July 2019 when it was shut down. Bebo, a once-popular social media platform, experienced rapid growth during its launch in 2005 to a peak of 40 million users but eventually fell out of favor due to competition from Facebook and Twitter.
Bebo struggled with monetization, ultimately selling to AOL for $850m in 2008. However, AOL failed to capitalize on Bebo's user base, leading to continued user attrition. The platform filed.
Bebo relaunched in 2015 as a messagener app called Bebo Blab but shut down again after two years. Amazon bought the company in 2019, and in 2021, plans to relaunch the social network were announced. Bebo ultimately remained a pandemic project and was shut down once again months after the revamp.
These days, when visiting Bebo.com, you will be greeted with the following message. By April 2010, AOL announced plans to sell or shut down Bebo, citing its inability to compete. The decline highlighted the challenges of integrating a startup into a large corporation, especially in a fast.
Michael Birch, the founder of the one-time Facebook rival, bought back the social network only to have his company shut down the site on Wednesday as it prepares to relaunch the business. Today, Bebo stands in ruins, a testament to social media hubris (or perhaps simply to other networks and apps taking over turf). So, what happened to this once-mighty social media giant? Why can't you create a Bebo account anymore, and when did it all go wrong for the site? Let's take a look at the history, origins, spectacular rise, and meteoric fall of Bebo.
2005: the beginning of Bebo. If so, the move may be backfiring, with many users warning each other to log back in to Bebo purely to download all their pictures before the site really does shut down for good. Just a month after returning to the hands of its founders, social.
Earlier this year, AOL announced plans to sell or shut down Bebo because it was unable to provide the "significant investment" needed to prevent its decline as a business.