Great post by Mike Butcher on TechCrunch arguing that AOL may be contemplating a sale of Bebo.
One strategic issue I can see with Bebo as a media property is that it is very very strong with kids of school age – but as kids get older, they seem to gravitate to Facebook.
If Facebook can hold its audience from the teen years into their twenties and thirties, clearly that’s going to be more valuable to many advertisers.
Whilst I don’t doubt that AOL is probably looking at some disappointing numbers from Bebo right now, I’d be surprised if they decided to sell at what (I hope) is close to the bottom of the market.
That’s especially because Bebo has delivered some great innovation around ad properties, particularly around online soaps like Kate Modern. It’s easy to pigeon-hole Bebo as a social networking site – but it is also an important delivery channel for video. And video, as bandwidth increases, will be the channel of the future.
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