Social networking site Bebo hopes to rekindle it’s dwindling success with the launch of it’s new video chat service, bChat.
bChat will allow Bebo-ers to talk to one another live via their webcams – like Chatroulette, but hopefully with less offensive nude imagery. As you’d expect, it has built in safety measures to ensure that connections are better targeted.
This is the first real news we’ve heard from Bebo since it was sold to AOL for $850 million in 2008. AOL shut the site down soon after and sold it for about $10m to Criterion Capital Partners.
Bebo is slowly but surely coming back in user numbers, and the new 20 strong team claim they are even seeing profits.
The bChat announcement is a sign that Bebo means business and indicates the start of a wider plan to become relevant once again.
TechCrunch reported that bChat is “provided by Vchatter, the social video chat service that is already available on Facebook and as a standalone offering”.
With very little noise coming from Bebo of late it’s about time they did something to make people take notice, could this be it?
Bebo’s chief executive, Adam Levin said;
“I think we can coexist really well with Facebook as Bebo is a platform now focused on self-expression. Not everyone wants to be on a platform where their Mum and Dad are members.
It’s all about reactivating the registered users, who will then tell new users to come and check out new tools and content we are putting on the site.”
Teeny boppers, pre adolescent boys and Justin Bieber fans across the world, unite – Bebo is back.
But, whether it can reclaim it’s place in the social media market remains to be seen…
