Digital

Bebo back in ownership of founder

By | Published on Wednesday 3 July 2013

Bebo

Well, if MySpace can have another stab at success (well, survival), why not Bebo?

The founder of the social network that for a time competed pretty seriously with MySpace and Facebook (especially amongst teens) has bought the company back for a million dollars, having sold it to AOL in 2008 for $850 million. Ah, those crazy, crazy digital deals.

Michael Birch confirmed he had bought back the social networking brand and platform on Monday, tweeting: “We just bought back Bebo for $1m. Can we actually re-invent it? Who knows, but will be fun trying…”

AOL offloaded Bebo to a bunch of equity types in 2010 in a deal reported to be worth less than $10 million. The new owners subsequently brought Birch in as an advisor, before eventually decided to bail on the venture.

The Bebo founder’s San Francisco-based company Monkey Inferno is now reportedly working on redesigning the site. It’s not known which former member of N Sync they plan to bring in as a creative advisor. My money’s on Lance Bass.



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