Amazon's Bebo Will Restart In February And Transform Into A "real-time Social Network"

The American social networking site Bebo was founded in 2005 by Michael and Xochi Birch, a couple from California. At its peak, it had more than 40 million registered users, and its popularity once overshadowed MySpace and Facebook. It's a pity that Bebo had a "challenged fate". Not only did Bebo not develop well, it was even shut down for a time, and was finally acquired by Amazon's Twitch game live broadcast platform.

However, according to recent foreign media reports, Bebo social platform plans to relaunch in February this year. Bebo is currently in the public testing phase, and only users with access rights can participate in this test.

(The current test page of Bebo official website)

A careful inventory will reveal that the development path of this social media platform is very bumpy.

According to the hypebeast website, Bebo was acquired by America Online (AOL) for US$850 million in 2008. The CEO of AOL praised Bebo as "a true pioneer of social networks";

However, as Bebo's development gradually failed to match that of Facebook, Bebo was "cruelly" sold by AOL to British real estate company Criterion Capital for only US$10 million. Due to poor management, Bebo was on the verge of bankruptcy in 2013;

I don’t know whether it was because they felt distressed or something else, but the founders of Bebo, the couple mentioned earlier, spent another $1 million to buy back their “biological son” and tried to promote its transformation and upgrading through various methods;

However, after experiencing several failures, Bebo was actually acquired by Amazon subsidiary Twitch for US$25 million to develop Twitch's e-sports business.

But in this last acquisition, Bebo’s founders and couple retained a certain right to speak, and during the epidemic, they thought about the untapped demand for social media in the market.

Michael Birch, one of the founders of Bebo, recently said in an interview that he plans to relaunch the social network and focus its development on personal profiles and real-time interactions between users and friends, rather than on Twitter and Facebook. That focus on message push gave people a little respite in a world full of "Fake News", for which he spent 100 hours a week writing code.

(Michael Birch, one of the founders of Bebo)

Michael calls the new version of Bebo a "real-time social network." He said: "When users log in to Bebo, users can know which other friends are online. Users can interact with friends in real time, and can also comment on friends' profiles. Friends who accept comments will receive notifications, and users can You can even have a live conversation under the photo on your profile."

Michael is still very proud of the Bebo website. He said that before announcing plans to restart, Bebo was still able to attract a visit every 3 seconds when offline, but he also made it clear that users cannot access old accounts and that Donald Trump is not welcome.

He hopes to blend nostalgia and curiosity to attract more new users and allow people to find friends to interact with on the new site.