As several sites are reporting — including PaidContent’s UK division and Mashable — Bebo has launched a social-media platform with a pile of traditional TV and media partners including the BBC. Bebo often gets forgotten when people are writing about social networking, because the majority of coverage focuses on Facebook and MySpace.
But while Bebo was created in the U.S., it has developed a large European user base and has about 40 million users or so, which puts it not that far behind Facebook. And the partners it has lined up for its social-media launch include some major names — such as CBS, BSkyB, Channel 4, ESPN and MTV, as well as some smaller players. According to the press release, the Open Media launch will allow Bebo users to:
“store and curate within their personal profiles their favorite music and video content, and virally distribute that content throughout their ‘friends network’ and the wider Bebo community.”
On a related note, the word “curate” has become increasingly popular as a way of describing what users are doing when they pick clips they like and post them somewhere, or send them to friends — makes it sound all Latin and important, doesn’t it? A lot better than saying something like “I was goofing off and watching kittens on YouTube.”
Further reading:
– CNET’s Caroline McCarthy has some details
– info on ad revenue splits over at Contentinople
– the Telegraph has a take, along with some really craptacular ads
– Silicon Alley Insider calls Bebo’s offering the “anti-Hulu”
– PaidContent has a video interview with a Bebo exec
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