Bebo Tries Redesign To Halt Traffic Slide
Bebo gained only a brief fillip when private equity firm Criterion took it off AOL’s hands in June 2010.
Check out its traffic over the period…
Despite additions including cross-social network chat capabilities, video conferencing, a video site and dating, Bebo’s traffic has gone on falling – it’s now a lowly #64 in comScore’s global social networking chart.
Nine months after the sale, Criterion is trying to reignite the social network with a redesign it says has been led by recently-enlisted Hi5 co-founder Akash Garg, Xbox co-founder Kevin Bachus and Bebo’s original co-founder Michael Birch. The redesign includes a revised homepage, reworked lifestream and notifications system.
Built out of San Francisco, the company claims “the culture has shifted back to that of a sleepless start-up”. Indeed, the future for Bebo may remain as uncertain as that of a startup. If it can’t attract a greater audience, then it seems Bebo’s main mission under Criterion is to overhaul its product technology for a future, further sell-off…
New CEO Adam Levin last year told paidContent:UK: “We are a merchant bank, a private equity fund – so we do look for deals that will return money to our investors at the end of the day. So we will be looking for a liquidity event at some point, but not for now.”
Errata: I think the dates near the bottom right of the chart should read 2011, not 2010. Can you fix?
Yes – thanks.
It’s always dangerous to make use desicions by overall use. Surely it is better to understand where your customers are, and if relevant to them, use a channel whether it’s popular with the masses in general or not.