JSM Financial: AOL to ditch Bebo social network.

April 7, 2010 - PRLog -- In what is to be one of the first casualties of the highly competitive social networking sector, JSM Financial has learned that AOL is set to either sell its Bebo platform or simply shut it down.

The decision comes only two short years after AOL bought Bebo for $850 million in the hopes of competing with MySpace and the rapidly growing Facebook.

JSM Financial believes the news of the decision was delivered to AOL employers via e-mail before the complete memo was printed in the Silicon Valley Insider.

“The strategy we set in May 2009 leverages our core strengths and scale in quality content, premium advertising and consumer applications, positioning us for the next phase of growth of the Internet. As we evaluate our portfolio of brands against our strategy, it is clear that social networking is a space with heavy competition, and where scale defines success. Bebo, unfortunately, is a business that has been declining and, as a result, would require significant investment in order to compete in the competitive social networking space. AOL is not in a position at this time to further fund and support Bebo in pursuing a turnaround in social networking,” JSM Financial believes a AOL source was Quoted as saying.

The firm is apparently working quickly to determine if there are any interested buyers for Bebo and the company hopes to have completed a strategic evaluation by the end of may this year.

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