Interesting choice of name.

The first Bebo I remember launched in 2005 and enjoyed considerable success – in the beginning. At the time, Myspace was the most popular social network, although Bebo would eventually end up with more users.

In many ways, Bebo was very similar to Facebook. Bebo was eventually sold to AOL for $850m in 2008. With a huge business like AOL backing them, how could it fail to be an even bigger success, right?

However, the sale to AOL actually ended up coinciding with Bebo's fall from grace. The main cause was the rise of Facebook which in 2009, grew enormously, and became the most popular social network, ever. Twitter too took yet more users away from Bebo, and as a result Bebo struggled.

In 2010, AOL announced they were planning to sell the site and within three years, Bebo filed for bankruptcy. The AOL acquisition has subsequently been described as among the worst ever business deals ever seen.