Bebo sold by AOL

[hah]

Internet company AOL has sold Bebo, the social networking site it bought two years ago for $850m (then £417m).

Criterion Capital Partners, a small private investment firm, announced that it had bought the business, but did not disclose the amount paid.

However, analysts suspect it to be just a fraction of the price paid by AOL in 2008.

Since then, Bebo has struggled to compete effectively against social networking rivals such as Facebook.

Earlier this year, AOL announced plans to sell or shut down Bebo because it was unable to provide the "significant investment" needed to prevent its decline as a business.

The BBC's technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones called AOL's decision to buy Bebo "one of the worst deals ever made in the dotcom era".

"The extraordinary thing is the deal was made years after the dotcom crash which was supposed to have taught the industry lessons," he said.

"The interesting thing is that the founder, Michael Birch, walked away with $300m - it's the art of timing."

zzzzzzz loved it when it was 05 lol

[Caution]

does anyone still use it.. :S

[PaulMacC]

I went on and saved all of the old pictures, haven't been on since.

[hah]

they get 20million hits a month or something, almost 3 times less than this time last year or something they said

[Moh]

who would want to buy it? =S

Does this also mean AOL have sold our data

[Metric1]

BEBO SUCKS

[Mathew]

Never used Bebo, it's terrible. Went straight from MySpace to Facebook

[Hitman]

who would want to buy it? =S

Does this also mean AOL have sold our data

Yes, don't know why you're so surprised because you agreed that they could sell it when you signed up. Terms of Service, remember that little thing?

[Moh]

Yes, don't know why you're so surprised because you agreed that they could sell it when you signed up. Terms of Service, remember that little thing?

Wish they had sold em to a company I trust

[Becca]

I used to go on it like, two years ago.
It's just a rubbish version of Facebook now.