Does AOL + bebo = ASBO*?
Is this another nail in the coffin of real social networking? Another media giant trying to make money out of people’s inbuilt intuition to communicate? Are they going to do anything clever or just whack display ads all over bebo (genius)?
I wasn’t too thrilled to hear the news but bebo going for a more ‘realistic’ $850million shows the silly-money market for social networks calming down a little. So what are they going to do with it? Well, bebo’s users are predominantly teenagers who are heavy future influencers but cash poor and prone to dis-loyalty.
AOL’s first thought is to integrate their messenger products like AIM and ICQ into bebo, ok i can see that working…. but supported by, you guessed it, loads of display ads from their platform A system. Ugghhh. Turning it into myspace is not the right way to go!
I think we’ll see a backlash from bebo users (who are predominantly in the UK) with less usage patterns occurring and a migration to other platforms as we near the 18 month churn period. As everyone knows the worst person in the world to piss off is a teenager.
What they should be doing is nurturing this audience for the long-term in the way that banks (sometimes!) get it right. AOL need to consider this young intelligent audience and their future potential for having a positive view of AOL and it’s products over the next 5 years. If they get it right and genuinely offer more to this community now such as quality content into bebo’s Open Media platform then there might just be a glimmer of hope for turning around the ailing fortunes of AOL.
They need this to be a positive generation-shift to move away from the tarnished old AOL users like me.
*Definition: ASBO - Anti-Social Behaviour Order (For my American friends, just spend a week in the UK and see any chav worth his salt has at least one)
Add comment March 14th, 2008
