Writing in the New York Times, songwriter Billy Bragg raises several important questions about money and music in the context of the sale of music-focused social networking site Bebo, which was recently purchased by Time Warner for $850 million.
As we noted yesterday discussing how dividing Facebook revenues amongst all the participants in that social network would yield very little to each person, it is important to put some of these big money deals in context.
I am totally in agreement with those that suggest the “right answer” is to find ways to bring the content producers into the equation More»

Labels: bebo, downloads, mp3, Music, Music industry, online music, Social Networking, social networks

In Meanwhile, Back at the Plantation Nick Carr raises questions about the importance of who owns what in a social network. He looks at the recent sale of Bebo - the world’s third largest social network after Facebook and Myspace - to Time Warner. Carr notes that the founders in that case did not claim ownership of their participants content:
Birch, to his credit, did not claim ownership rights to the music and other creative work uploaded to his site. But neither did he offer any royalties or other financial benefits to More»

Labels: bebo, Facebook, facebook revenues, mark zuckerberg, nick carr

Today’s big news is AOL’s acquisition of Social Network Bebo for a cool $850 million. Kara Swisher has an excellent piece detailing some of the financial aspects of this mega-deal. She also notes that despite some significant success in the space, Bebo is very much in the shadow of Myspace and Facebook as a social network.
With only $5 million in EBITA for 2007, Bebo is selling at a whopping 160+ times earnings. Big companies tend to do be viewed more favorably than small ones by this EBITA multiple More»

Labels: AOL, bebo, Facebook, MySpace, social media, Social Networking, social networks

AOL is about to acquire Bebo for $850 million. AOL announces the Bebo acquisition. Bebo is the the third place Social Network in the US and far behind both Myspace and Facebook, but it is the first place social network in the British Isles and Second in New Zealand.
Based in London and begun in 2005, Bebo lists these features as major aspects of the Bebo philosophy of social networking:
Open Media: Open Media gives media companies free and open access to Bebo’s users worldwide and the Bebo community free and open access to thousands of hours of premium entertainment content More»

Labels: AOL, bebo, Microsoft, social networks, Yahoo