Bebo for $850 million

I guess the news in my world today is that Bebo sold to AOL for $850 million.

Trust AOL to make the Microsoft-generated $15 billion “valuation” look like a steal. I’m curious how much Hi5 must be worth now:

Bebo’s phenomenal growth

Just trying to add some perspective. Not sure how Falco thinks “dominating in the United Kingdom” is going to save AOL…but I didn’t understand how they planned to win a war in Iraq either. I guess people are just really, really smart and I should trust them. At least now I know what they did with all the money they saved from the layoffs. In any case, congratulations, Bebo!

Earlier a bunch of us were discussing the internet porn industry. A friend mentioned that when you see companies like AdultFriendFinder selling out to traditional media outlets like Penthouse, it means that the players in the industry don’t see much growth potential and are cashing out.

Right before the internet bubble burst, Palm spun off from 3COM for higher than the parent company’s market cap.

Enjoy the crash.

5 thoughts on “Bebo for $850 million

  1. Oh, that’s cool. As Bebo is relativly small it makes it easy to calculate the “value” of other companies. So according to alexa out site is 20 time smaller, so it must be worth 850mio$/20 = 42.5 mio. dollar. Probably we gona sell it in euro and make even more money 😀

  2. @leo The value, I think, is a function of the spending ability of the market share. In Bebo’s case, their market share is pretty bad, but their presence, I’m told, is very large in Great Britain. That, I suppose, is the reason why they paid so much.

    Still, I’m very confused. In previous times, I’d guess that others just know more than me, but after the Iraq War, I’ve decided to trust my common sense before discounting it with talk from “experts.”

  3. Hello Terry, been a while(you may not remember me) but anywho…

    What do you think the future of social networking will be?

    And I see you are the last keynote speaker at php|tek in Chicago where I know live…I would like to meet you there if possible.

  4. @Rashaud: I do not have any special insight into the world of Social Networking.

    I think, unlike the past, it is here to stay. But, that it will have to work hard to prove its Google-like valuations. The future of social networking will be how to make money (at good return to the advertisers) off them. The challenge will be to prove themselves not to be just another media product.

    As for meeting me at php|tek, just come up to me and say hi. I don’t bite. 🙂

Leave a Reply to leo Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.