Struggling Internet association America Online pronounced Tuesday it plans to sell or close Bebo, the amicable networking site it acquired dual years ago, by the finish of May.
"As we weigh the portfolio of brands opposite the strategy, it is transparent that amicable networking is a space with complicated competition, and where scale defines success. Bebo, unfortunately, is a commercial operation that has been declining," AOL pronounced in a statement.
In sequence for Bebo to go on underneath AOL ownership, the association said, it would "require poignant investment in sequence to contest in the rival amicable networking space," alluding to the success of such amicable networking sites as Facebook, MySpace and Friendster.
Story continues next ↓advertisement your ad hereAOL pronounced Tuesday it "is not in a on all sides at this time to serve account and await Bebo in posterior a turnaround in amicable networking."
The association paid for Bebo in Mar 2008 for $850 million from primogenitor Time-Warner. At that time, Bebo was one of the largest amicable networks in Britain, and was ranked initial in Ireland and New Zealand and third in the United States, according to AOL.
"Bebo has never had an assembly that came close to MySpace and Facebook, solely for in the United Kingdom," pronounced Andrew Lipsman, comparison executive of industry research for comScore, that does Web site analytics.
In the last dual years, Facebooks expansion has been bomb compared to alternative amicable networking sites, that are struggling to reinvent themselves in sequence to pull new users. Bebo had 12.8 million singular visitors in February, according to comScore. That represented a 45 percent decrease from Feb 2009.
In contrast, Facebook had 462 million singular visitors in Feb 2010, up 68 percent from the year before.
After Facebook, the amicable networking sites with the majority visitors in Februarywere: MySpace, with scarcely 110 million; Twitter, with 69.5 million; Orkut, with 49.8 million; HI5.com, with 39.6 million, according to comScore.
Facebook has some-more than 400 million active members worldwide, with about thirty percent of those in the United States.
Launched in 2005Bebo was launched in mid-2005, and the offices are in San Francisco. In 2006, the site won a "Webby" endowment for most appropriate amicable networking site from the classification that annual recognizes Web sites and online achievements. Bebo has about 40 employees now, compared to 100 or so when the site was paid for by AOL.
At the time of the purchase, AOL authority Randy Falco pronounced the amicable networking site was "the undiluted element to AOL’s personal communications network and puts us in a heading on all sides in amicable media."
Yesterdays association matter was utterly different. AOL "is committed to operative fast to establish if there are any meddlesome parties for Bebo and the company’s stream expectancy is to finish the vital analysis by the finish of May 2010."
Was poignant squeeze for AOLThe $850 million in money that AOL paid Bebo done it AOLs largest understanding given it paid for MapQuest for $1 billion in 2000 (not counting AOLs $106 billion squeeze of Time Warner in 2001). At the time, AOL was still assimilated with Time Warner Inc., but it distant from the media firm late last year.
Since spinning off from Time Warner, AOL has sole one property: associate selling commercial operation Buy.at, that it sole in Mar to Digital Window Ltd. for an undisclosed price. Digital Window runs a network of associate selling sites, that drive commercial operation to e-commerce sites in sell for a cut of sales.
AOL, a colonize in the dial-up Internet commercial operation during the "90s, has been perplexing to streamline and concentraterebuilding itself as a calm and promotion business. It runs dozens of Web sites, together with renouned tech blog Engadget and personal financial site WalletPop.
Clayton Moran, an researcher at The Benchmark Co., pronounced the cost AOL paid for Bebo was questioned from the start.
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"It done a lot of industry watchers blemish their heads," Moran said. "At this point they probably would confess they overpaid for it and right away they"re only cleaning it up."
He pronounced that if AOL does sell Bebo, it would expected fetch a fragment of the strange squeeze price.
Msnbc.com staff bard Alex Johnson and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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