Frederic over at The Last Podcast posted his Thursday Night Thoughts, and mentioned his and the blogosphere's general apathy over the AOL acquisition of Bebo.
I guess it doesn’t matter to me much and even though it is the Techmeme headline for the day, it doesn’t really seem to get too much play in the blogosphere beyond the ever incessant repetition of the news, either.
The response from Mashable readers today on our daily poll was similarly ambivalent, though we didn't have an option for "I couldn't care less," when we asked whether or not you thought Bebo was a good purchase for AOL to make, there were less than a handful of votes difference between those that thought yes and those that thought no.
Before facebook everyone loved myspace. before myspace everyone loved friendster...
granted Bebo isn't exactly the new kid on the block, and doesn't offer great features that the others don't have...but it's workable, just not in the US. Bebo is HUGE ouside of the states, AOL just put themselves in a better global position.
i don't think this move is to win over the hearts of american surfers...it's to tap into an international market.
i think it's a great move for AOL.
Curiously, it seems that AOL (which if you remember, stands for America OnLine) is doing better overseas than they are in the states - or at least they're gaining more traction and return from their existing brands out there than they are here in the US. As Dwayne says, Bebo, much like David Hasselhof, is real big in Europe. You know what else is big out there (as well as Canada)? WinAmp and Shoutcast. Most places in Europe don't have to tango with the insane licensing restrictions for hobby internet radio DJing we have here in America, so servers get set up overseas.
RadioKills' blog also came up with a couple other things that belong to AOL that folks outside America seem to love:
AIM which is the US’s most popular web messenger service as well as the AOL-owned “ICQ” which still sees strong usage in foreign territories and gaming markets create the strongest messenger brand in the world, but lack web integration.
But back to Frederic's question of apathy: Why don't we seem to care? I say the answer is probably rooted into two factors. For one, AOL, like many other tech giants, have a hard time integrating new startups into the fold without either quashing their purpose, erasing their culture and community, or just straight up forgetting they exist. For this reason I think another great question to poll our readers might be "Was it a good deal for Bebo to sell out to AOL?"