AOL buying Bebo for $850 million was a pleasant surprise to wake up to this morning. Wow! I think this is a smart move for AOL as Bebo is currently the third largest social network on the Web behind Facebook and MySpace. With AIM offering one of the larger social graphs on the Web but a turnstile of online social networking profile site attempts in the last two years it looks like AOL has finally decided to invest externally in a solution with a lot users and page views. This just adds to the a number of other acquisitions that recently occurred in the social platforms group which include Goowy and Yedda.
Other than that I really don't have any information on the Bebo acquisition which I find sort of amusing since all my blogging buddies (TechCrunch, CenterNetworks and GigaOm), many of which I personally introduced to my colleagues at AOL, seemed to be in the loop on the Bebo acquisition news before most the AOL social platforms group in which I work and I assume Bebo will be placed in. Oh and you can see my bebo profile here.
Congratulations to the newest Silicon Valley millionaires and AOL employees from Bebo.
Ron Grant, AOL President & COO, discusses the recent Bebo acquisition on video (below).
