The end has arrived for Bebo

AOL announces that Bebo is going to be sold or closed down. AOL decided this as it would take “too much additional investment” to keep the social networking site worthwhile.

John Brod, Executive Vice President at AOL:

“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.

“AOL is committed to working quickly to determine if there are any interested parties for Bebo and the company’s current expectation is to complete our strategic evaluation by the end of May 2010.”

According the WSJ, Bebo was never really a success.

The site never gained a foothold in the U.S. and steadily fell behind the competition. Bebo attracted 5 million unique U.S. visitors in February, down 12% from the same period last year, according to comScore Inc. In contrast, Facebook attracted 111.8 million unique U.S. visitors in February, nearly double the size of its audience in February 2009.

"We've known this has been a declining asset since just beyond day one that they bought it," says Ross Sandler, an Internet analyst with RBC Capital Markets. "It is a sunk cost at this point."

Well, there is the end of the Bebo, which was a flop since day 1. Good Bye Bebo, but I doubt many people will miss you.