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All you need to know about bebo.com
Bebo.com: Slowly Carving a Niche in the Virtual World
Man as a social creature has to satisfy his need to network and create new friends. Whether this refers to a relationship nurtured personally or virtually, this is no longer a problem with the development of the Internet. This is the reason why social networking sites are very popular among the millions of computer users. Bebo.com is one such site that caters to forming meaningful and fruitful relationships among and between its members. This website was conceived with the purpose of maintaining existing friendships as well as creating new ones.
According to a survey conducted by Hitwise, the current market share of Bebo.com against its peers stands at 1.18%. At this level, it already ranks third among similarly designed websites. In terms of traffic generated, Bebo occupies the top position in Ireland where almost 15% of its users originate. It belongs to the top 5 in New Zealand while it is ranked in the top 15 in the United Kingdom and Australia . This statistics are quite impressive considering the Bebo was officially launched only in January 2005.
Based on a search pattern that Google made in 2006, Bebo.com was the most searched word using this particular search engine tool. Although it is presently among the top 100 most popular websites in English, Bebo.com still has to make an impression in the US market as less than 10% of its users come from this country.
Criticisms Hurled Against Bebo.com's Popularity
It is a harsh reality that nobody or nothing is capable of pleasing everyone. If you are able to generate praise from a group of people, you should expect an opposite reaction from another. When surfing through the Internet, you can easily tell if a website is fast becoming a favorite among users when not only accolades are given, but criticisms as well. Then again, good or bad publicity, such attention is still publicity that will pique the curiosity of those who are initially unaware of the site?s existence. Such phenomenon is happening to Bebo.com, barely 3 years into existence but already being subjected to various criticisms.
A major criticism that has been hurled against Bebo.com is the use of this website to schedule fights among different groups or gangs of youngsters. This is possible through sending messages to each other through the Bebo Groups or the use of the whiteboards. The fights, which were later on uncovered, were claimed to have happened in Ireland and in the United Kingdom (UK), where more than half of the total users come from, which has a combined rate of 55%. This has prompted one educational institution in the UK to block access to Bebo.com while inside school premises. Despite such setbacks in its use, Bebo.com remains a popular social networking site in the abovementioned countries.