‘Bebo Will Stay Part Of AOL’, UK Exec Says
Who knows whether new AOL (NYSE: TWX) CEO Tim Armstrong’s evolving org chart has yet filtered down to even Bebo execs themselves - but, while AOL may change around it, the social network seems set to remain in tact, one such suggests…
“Bebo’s not being spun off; Time Warner is spinning off AOL,” UK and Ireland sales head Simon Podd told a panel during C21’s Social Media Forum at Bafta on Monday. “Bebo is part of AOL - Bebo sits within People Networks but then we’ve got a new CEO. He’s looking at how he can manage the business - there might be a new name for People Networks, Bebo will still remain in the AOL family, whether it’s called People Networks or something else.”
Under Bebo and AOL People Networks president Joanna Shields, People Networks last year threaded together AIM, ICQ, Socialthing, Bebo and other social nets. Before Shields stepped down in May, AllThingsD quoted an insider as saying Bebo, along with other AOL acquisitions, will be “relocated” in to a new “AOL Ventures” unit, which itself will seek investment for them.
—New show in August: Won’t the changes swirling around it affect Bebo’s video projects? “We’re ploughing ahead,” Podd said, revealing an imminent follow-up to its new RDF-produced youth show B-Box: “We’ve done six, seven, eight - we’ve got another one that’s going to be announced in the next couple weeks—we’re going to be launching another magazine-style show in August.
—Funding video: Asked to clarify Bebo Euro MD Kate Burn’s March remark that “we do not fund the programmes ourselves anymore, they are 100 percent ad-funded”, Podd said pretty much the opposite; the difference appears semantic: “I think there was some confusion around that statement. We fund these shows - they are ad-funded shows 100 percent. In the early days we agreed to cover production but knowing that the production budget was going to come from advertising. They’ve always been 100 percent ad-funded productions.”
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Posted In: Companies, AOL, Bebo, Time Warner
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