AOL announces acquisition of Bebo

AOL announced yesterday (Thursday, March 13th) that it is set to acquire leading global social networking site Bebo.

The agreement, which will see AOL pay $850 million (£417 million) for Bebo, comes just a week after AOL launched an initiative to provide greater AIM network access to the developer community.

Bebo is among the UK´s most popular social networking sites and is ranked as the third most used social network in the US.

Commenting on the acquisition, Randy Falco, chairman and chief executive of AOL, said: "Bebo is the perfect complement to AOL´s personal communications network and puts us in a leading position in social media.

"What drew us to Bebo was its substantial and fast-growing worldwide user-base, its vision of a truly social web, and the monetisation opportunities that leverage Platform-A across our combined global audience.

"That positions us to offer advertisers even greater reach and marketers significant insights into the desires and needs of consumers."

According to eMarketer, $4.1 billion (£2 billion) will be spent worldwide for social network advertising by 2011.

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