Andre Yoskowitz
8 Apr 2010 12:10
AOL, infamous for terrible investments, has announced that they will either sell or shut down the social networking site Bebo, which they bought for $850 million just two years ago.
"Bebo, unfortunately, is a business that has been declining and, as a result, would require significant investment in order to compete in the competitive social networking space," said Jon Brod, executive vice president of AOL. "AOL is not in a position at this time to further fund and support Bebo in pursuing a turnaround in social networking."
At the time of the acquisition, AOL was still part of Time Warner, part of a merger that many have called the worst deal of all-time. (AOL had to take a $99 billion dollar loss in 2002.)
Bebo saw only 5 million unique visitors last month, compared to 112 million for Facebook, and Bebo continues to see declining traffic.