AOL’s Buy of Social Network Bebo is Great News…

Posted on March 20, 2008

…for the few lucky folks who’ll make a ton of money in the transaction. For AOL and the rest of us, it’s no big deal.

Why do I say this? Several reasons:

Social networks are extremely trendy. Members Only jackets were all the rage once too. Bebo may be rich in advertising opportunities today and a wasteland tomorrow.
Initiatives like Google’s OpenSocial will make it easier for developers to create cross-social network functionality and meta-social networks, which will in turn make it easier for users to (ex)port their contacts and social graphs from social network to social network. Stickiness to individual social networks will decrease as social aspects are built more into Internet plumbing.
Bebo isn’t Facebook or MySpace.

I feel like I should have some witty closing sentence here but I can’t think of one. :)

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