Bebo friendly with the two big players
Social networks are always intriguing, both within and outside cyberspace. It seems at the moment that online social networks are all launching platforms – LinkedIn has done so this week, and Friendster also. Then yesterday Bebo announced that it is going to launch an application platform of its own, similar to and compatible with that of Facebook. Not only this, but Bebo CEO Michael Birch has suggested that his company is also going to work with Google’s OpenSocial.
Bebo, with around 40 million users, is somewhat behind social network giants Facebook and MySpace. Bebo tends to have more of a following in the UK, with somewhat less of an appeal in the US.
MySpace has started including widgets from outside developers, and Bebo is now following suit. It seems that Bebo may be trying to combine the functionality of Facebook, with the freedom of expression afforded by MySpace.
Bebo’s platform is very similar to Facebook’s - users can rate applications using a star system, developers can skin their app pages with their own design. It looks like Bebo and Facebook will be working closely together in the future, and if Bebo is compatible with Facebook, then apps can just be ported from one to the other.
Some people in the business are saying that the OpenSocial vs Facebook issue could be a bit like Windows vs Mac, and a lot of people are not keen to see two competing standards.
It will be interesting to see how the situation vis-a-vis the social networking sites develops over the next few months – there seems to be a lot at stake.