BEBO

'Bebo' (IPA /ˈbiːboʊ/) is a social networking website, designed to allow friends to communicate in various ways. It has developed into an online community where users can post pictures, write blogs and send messages to one another, and is similar in format to MySpace, Xanga, and Yahoo! 360. The site was founded in January 2005 by husband and wife team Michael and Xochi Birch. It was given a major relaunch in July of that year.^[1] Bebo can be used in most countries around the world including Ireland,Canada,the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia.
Bebo is the 85th most popular English-language website (at 2007-06-01) according to Alexa Internet.^[2] According to Hitwise, Bebo is the third most popular social networking website, but only has a 1.18% share of the market.^[3] Bebo also announced on March 17 2007 that it was the most popular website in the Republic of Ireland.^[4] Bebo was also listed as the number one term most representative of search trends on Google in 2006.^[5]

Contents

Features

Profile components

Bebo Bands

Bebo Authors

Bebo Groups

Criticism and Controversy

See also

References

External links

Features

Profile components

Once a user has registered an account, they edit and maintain their own profile page using online forms. The top of a user's profile contains information about the user, which would typically include their name, a customizable profile image (often a photo of the user), and some miscellaneous information under various headings. The profiles are decorated with 'skins', default skins are avalaible but users are able to create their own to reflect their interests.
Profiles include; a ''whiteboard'', in which other users can draw pictures with a variety of colors using a system called ffArt, a comment section where other users can leave a message, and a list of the user's friends. These are all publicly viewable, unless the user selects the "Private Profile" option, which limits access to the profile to friends specifically added by the user.
Profiles are also capable of including quizzes, slide-shows of images uploaded by the user, polls for their friends to vote in, photo albums, blogs with a comments section for others' responses, a list of bands (''see below'') of which the profile-holder is a "groupie" and a "Flash Box"; which plays video, often linked from popular Internet site YouTube, or uploaded directly to Bebo's servers. Members can also add "widgets" which are more graphically rich components provided by an external site — typically something like a slide-show of the member's photos with some transition effect applied.
Members can view the recent changes friends have made to their homepage from the 'Home' menu. These changes can include uploaded photos, updated flashboxes and newly added videos and friends.
A map feature enables members to see who has being viewing their profile. However, the viewer must be logged in while viewing and have their profile set to public in the map section, in order for this to be possible.

Bebo Bands

On 11 July 2006, "Bebo Bands" was launched.^[6] On this section of the site, bands or solo artists are able to create a profile showcasing their music. Along with undiscovered talents, it has a section called "New Music Only on Bebo" linking to established artist pages including Paris Hilton, Matt Willis, Orson, Coldplay, Kylie Minogue, The Kooks, Lily Allen, U2 and others.
The band pages include a band member list which is similar to the friends list on a normal profile, a list of "fans" (fans who have added the band as though it were a friend), an area for tour dates, a blog, and a list of songs which have been uploaded for playing through Bebo's media player, or to be added to other user's playlists. These songs can be grouped by the band into albums, along with cover-art. All band members can edit the content of the band profile.
Although the Bebo Band section is intended for use by musical groups, the facility is also used by many to form clubs or societies, or as unofficial fan pages for established bands.

Bebo Authors

On 11 November 2006, Bebo Authors was launched. On this section of the site, authors can upload chapters of their books and also get them reviewed with a certain module. Currently there is no module to display books on a profile page like there is for Bands and Groups.

Bebo Groups

On 10 July 2007, the 'Group' module was added to pages. This enabled people to view groups which were previously joined to a school and were also only viewable to school members. Bebo also gave an option to convert existing Authors or Bands to Groups. This conversion takes up to 24 hours as the profile must be manually changed by a member of Bebo staff.

Criticism and Controversy

A survey of two million profiles by Bigulo.com found that one in three publicly accessible profiles belonged to children under the age of eighteen.^[7]
In March 2006 Norfolk County Council is believed by the BBC to have become the first LEA in the United Kingdom to order all schools in its authority to block the website from school computers, due to its being used for "unsavoury activities".^[8]
In March 2007 in Derry, Northern Ireland, Bebo was used to organise a sectarian fight under the guise of a cross community football match.^[9] Bebo has also been used to name and abuse local police officers in Tayside, Scotland.^[10]
Police in the United Kingdom have claimed that several social networking websites are being used by young people to organise fights and even mass brawls. However, they have singled out Bebo in particular as a cause for concern. UK law enforces claim to have arrested children as young as fourteen in connection with these incidents and that the use of weapons is not uncommon.^[11]

See also

★ List of social networking websites

References

1. About Michael Birch
2. Bebo.com
3.
4. Happy St. Paddy's Day - Bebo is #1 in Ireland!
5. 2006 Year-End Zeitgeist
6. Bebo strikes the right chord with the launch of Bebo Bands Shawn Lunn
7. One in three public Bebo pages belong to children John Kennedy
8. Parents warned about teen website
9.
10.
11. Teenagers set up mass brawls on the internet Simon de Bruxelles

External links

★ Bebo Homepage

★ Bebo Global-Polish Homepage