iTWire - Bebo partners with three leading media services to make widgets simple, secure, viral

Bebo partners with three leading media services to make widgets simple, secure, viral

Catriona Pollard
Thursday, 21 December 2006 08:26

Bebo, the next generation social network, has partnered with media services Photobucket, Rockyou and Slide to offer users unparalleled capacity to add simple, secure and viral widgets to their Bebo profiles.

Despite the popularity of photo slideshows and other widgets, the launch of ‘Bebo Widgets’ marks the first time that social network users can select photos already uploaded to their personal profiles, create their widget of choice, and display it on their profile with a series of simple clicks.Bebo's CEO and co-founder, Michael Birch commented, "We don't think Beboers should ever have to copy-paste source code or send their Bebo login information to us through another site. So we've been fortunate to partner with three widget producers to make their fun and innovative products an integrated part of the Bebo experience." "Bebo is a great partner with an enthusiastic international community that overlaps with many of Photobucket's 30 Million members,” said Alex Welch, CEO, Photobucket. “We're creating a positive user experience with Bebo Widgets where users can be creative and expressive with their personal media."Max Levchin, CEO and founder of Slide, added, "Slide’s partnership with Bebo will further accelerate our growth, as well as our ability to easily service the millions of Slide fans on the Bebo network. We’re looking forward to a long-term partnership with one of the fastest growing companies on the Web today, and especially one that shares our values: a laser focus on the user experience and the drive toward push-button self expression.” In addition to the simplicity of Bebo Widgets, the system also adds security by only allowing widgets from Bebo’s whitelist of approved providers and by displaying widgets in iframes hosted on a separate URL to prevent access to the rest of the page.

Jim Scheinman, Bebo VP of sales and marketing, said, “It’s exciting to open up Bebo to our widget partners but we haven’t rushed into doing this, as the security and end user experience has been paramount. We have taken our time to find ‘best of breed’ partners to be able to deliver preeminent products to the market in a secure way to meet the needs of our users.”

Rockyou founder Lance Tokuda added, “The Rockyou team is excited to be part of the Bebo community and to provide Beboers multiple ways to express themselves dynamically online. Bebo is one of the largest global social networking sites and Beboers have proven to be an incredibly engaged online community. The inclusion of Rockyou on Bebo will significantly impact Rockyou's mission of being the leading provider for self-expression and profile customization on the web."Another advantage of Bebo’s unique approach to widgets is that it allows a user to add any public widget to his or her own profile with two clicks, making widgets every bit as viral as videos from Bebo TV or songs from Bebo Bands.Birch explained, “Making it easy to share and discover all types of media is central part of the Bebo experience, and widgets are no exception. If there’s a widget that you like on a page that you can see, you can add it to your list of widgets. It’s that simple.” About Rockyou – http://www.rockyou.com/ Rockyou is the leading slideshow and personalization widget provider for social networks, personal websites, and blogs. With millions of users and hundreds of thousands of widgets created and shared a day, Rockyou lets individuals freely express themselves online in the most dynamic way possible. About Slide, Inc. – http://www.slide.com/Slide helps you turn your photos and other digital content into Slide Shows that you can watch and share on your Web site or desktop. Launched in 2005 by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, Slide is dramatically changing the way you find and discover the people and things that matter to you. What’s in your Slide? Find out on www.slide.com. For media inquiries, email pr (at) slide (dot) com.About Photobucket – http://www.photobucket.com/ Photobucket is the easiest and most reliable way for people to create, manage and share their personal media online. With more than 30 million users, Photobucket is a creative hub linking billions of personal photos, graphics and videos daily to hundreds of thousands of web sites — including MySpace, Bebo, eBay, Craigslist, Blogger and Xanga. In addition to linking, Photobucket users share images and videos by email, instant messaging and mobile devices. Everyday over 7 million personal photos, graphics and videos are uploaded to Photobucket for sharing with family, friends and the online world. The company actively moderates content to create a safe environment for its users, partners and advertisers. Photobucket has offices in Palo Alto, California and Denver, Colorado and is located online at www.photobucket.com.About Bebo – http://www.bebo.com/ Bebo is the next generation social networking site, focused on designing the cleanest, safest and most fun multimedia user experience on the web. Since its official launch in July 2005, the San Francisco-based site has grown to more than 29 million registered members and 5 billion monthly page views. According to third party sources such as Nielsen, Hitwise and Media Metrix, Bebo is the largest social networking site in the UK, Ireland, and New Zealand.

Recent Comscore numbers rank Bebo as the third most popular social network in the US, based on uniques and pageviews, and show Bebo to have the highest engagement with 720 pageviews per unique in August. Bebo is also considered the most ‘sticky’ social networking site as shown by data released in August by Media Metrix.

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