Bebo, currently the third largest social network, behind the big guns of MySpace and Facebook, has thrown it’s hat in to the online television ring by offering programme makers another outlet for showcasing their output.
They announced their new ‘Open Media’ platform yesterday at joint glossy presentations in both London and New York.
This new initiative in effect allows media companies to put their material on Bebo for free, and if they have the capability, to make 100% of the revenue from any in-programme advertising.
Bebo members will be able to view and listen to the content, as well as add it to a list of favourites, and share it with friends.
Big Names Already Signed Up
The venture has already had some big names sign up, including the BBC, ITN, Channel 4, BSkyB and Endemol in the UK, and CBS, MTV, ESPN in the US.
All of these companies have signed agreements allowing them to post shows on Bebo, as well as offer extra programmes such as behind the scenes footage.
Joanna Shields, president of Bebo said:
“The web has changed. It’s a social medium. The spectrum of social networking is evolving beyond utilities and applications.
Bebo is a social media network where culture and content come together and people use media and entertainment as a means of self-expression.”
With this new self expression platform, Bebo are certainly going after the MySpace crowd, and diverging from the Facebook model of wooing programmers to offer new applications.
Facebook has got Metacafe and Pyro.tv applications available for it’s members, but they both pale in to insignificance when faced with big media companies putting exclusive footage on to a site instead.
Conclusions
It’s an exciting step forward, both for social networking sites, and for the growth of online television, although it’s yet to be seen how successful the company will be able to seamlessly add thousands of hours of entertainment to an existing site.
If done well, this could see traditional television channels being able to market their output to the 40 million odd Bebo users, and taking the growth of online media to a whole new level.
