Bebo
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Bebo (pronounced "Bee-bo") is a social networking website, designed to allow friends to communicate in various ways. It has developed into an online community where users can post pictures, write blogs and send messages to one another, and is similar in format to MySpace, hi5.com and Yahoo! 360.
The site has been increasing in popularity, with over 22,000,000 registered members[1] (although a much smaller number of members are regularly active on the website). Bebo is the 340th most popular English language website according to Alexa Internet, and the second most popular in Ireland according to the Irish Independent (17th in the UK)[2]. In the US, Bebo was the fastest growing social networking site in June 2006 according to Hitwise, Inc.[3]
Features
Homepage features
Once a user has registered an account, their "Bebo Homepage" is created. The contents of this page are edited by the user, using online forms. The top of a user's homepage contains profile information about the user, which would typically include their name, a picture, a paragraph about them, and some profile information under a few different headings. Default headings are Music, Films, Sports, Scared Of and Happiest When. Many users use their own headings to reflect their own interests, or to include quips, quotes or jibes.
The typical homepage contains much more than just the above information. Every homepage must include the following sections:
- Whiteboard; in which other Bebo users who view the page can draw pictures (which become visible to everyone viewing the homepage) using a simple online system called ffArt (standing for 'free form Art'). Whiteboards can now be reviewed by recipients before they go live on their pages. Users can either Accept, Reject or Decide Later what to do with a received comment. This option is accessible through the "My Account" link.
- Comments; where viewers of the page can leave text comments. Towards the end of August 2006, users were given the ability to reply easily to other users' comments on their homepage through a new "Reply" link. This lets you decide whether to reply publicly (by leaving a comment on their homepage) or privately (by sending a reply by the Mail system) and also presents the text of the original comment for reference. After criticism over malicious comments, Bebo have added an option to allow users to review new comments before they are posted on their page. This works exactly like the Whiteboard system, discussed above.
- Friends; which shows, in a four by four panel, the profiles pictures of sixteen of the page-holder's friends. Clicking on any of these pictures brings you to that person's homepage. All of a user's friends are publicly visible: above the four by four panel, there is a link to a complete listing of the user's friends. The selection of the "top sixteen" friends had previously been automated, but now each user can select which sixteen friends they wish to appear directly on their homepage. As of August 2006, when a user orders their top 16 friends, there is no way for him or her to changed it back to the original randomised setting.
A homepage would also usually include the following:
- Quizzes; where viewers of the page can answer quizzes composed by the page-holder. A typical quiz might be titled "How well do you know <<Page-holder's name>>?" Upon completion of the quiz, the percentage scores and answers of all previous quiz-takers become visible. Each taker of the quiz may also leave a comment which will be displayed next to the score they attained.
- Flash Box (Bebo TV); this holds multimedia content from the section of the site "Bebo TV" and plays when the page is viewed. This can either be video content uploaded directly to Bebo's servers (using client-side VideoEgg publishing software), or a link to an externally hosted Flash file. The video-uploading functionality was introduced in early April 2006. As of June 2006, Bebo is only allowing users to use YouTube's flash movies alongside the VideoEgg system, however this is expected to change in the near future. Previously, any Flash file could be linked to. "Channels" have also been added to the Bebo TV system, including Music, Sports, Comedy, Art and many others. Each channel has its own chart as well as the universal chart. For some time the feature was referred to as "Bebo TV" even on homepages, however users continued to call them Flash Boxes, so the name was brought back. Outside homepages it is referred to as Bebo TV still. It also received a place in the uppermost navigation bar, alongside Mail, Bands, College etc.
- Polls; where the page-viewer can vote in a poll or polls created by the page-holder. Each poll has between two and five options; only one can be selected. The page which displays the current standings of a poll also shows comments left by those who took the poll.
- Photos; this section shows a number of titled photo albums, each one containing pictures uploaded by the holder of the page. The viewer can leave comments on each picture viewed. One of the pictures is selected by the page-holder as their profile picture. This picture is displayed prominently at the top of their homepage, next to any comments they make, and is used wherever a link to their homepage is required (such as in the "Friends" section of another user). Users are now required to select a Top 21 photo albums to appear on their Homepage, with all albums visible on a separate Photos page. Users also now have the ability to sort the order of photos within their albums. There are, however, strict limitations on picture size, with no dimension allowed to be greater than 500 pixels. Some users compensate for this by leaving a link to a free image site, such as www.imageshack.us, in a comment.
- Blog; this is where the holder of the page can publish text. Each post comes under its own heading, and the reader of the blog can comment on a particular post (unless this is specifically disabled by the page-holder). This section is often used to display jokes, humorous lists, personal quizzes to see what other people think about them or other types of on-line humour. It is also commonly used for announcements, musings, or as a public journal.
- Bands and Playlists; these sections are related to the "Bebo Bands" section of the site (as discussed below). The Bands section is where a user's favourite bands are listed. Users add their favourite bands similarly to how they add new friends on the site. The Playlists section lists a user's playlist of favourite songs from Bebo Bands pages. Users can also copy each others' playlists onto their own pages and, effectively, share them.
Bebo Bands features
On 11 July 2006, Bebo Bands launched. On this section of the site, bands or solo artists are able to create a homepage showcasing their music. Along with undiscovered talents, it has a section called "New Music Only on Bebo" linking to established artist pages including Paris Hilton, Matt Willis, Orson, Coldplay, Kylie Minogue, Katie Melua and more.
- Band Members; Like a regular homepage's friends list, this shows the band members in a four by four panels.
- Groupies: This is like the Band Members section, only it shows the group's fans in a four by four panel.
- Tour Dates: This section is simply a space where the artist can list all upcoming concerts, with details of location, time and date included.
- Songs: Here the artist can list a number of their songs which are available to be added to other users' "Playlists". One can also choose the "Play All" link which opens a new window with a Bebo MP3 Player.
- Albums; This is like the "Songs" section, except the songs are grouped into their respective albums. The cover of the album is shown as a thumbnail above the album name and list of tracks.
- Bebo Bands homepages also include a Photos section.
More recently 'Bebo Bands' has been used as a substitute to the fact that there are no 'Bebo Groups'. Bebo now has 'bands' such as 'Toms Band' , 'The Number Seven Bus' and 'We Love Vegetables'.
Awards
Bebo won the People's Choice award in the Social Networking category of the 2006 Webby Awards.
Criticisms
Bebo was initially designed strictly as a contact and photo-sharing site, and as such users' personal information such as phone number and home address was visible to all of their "friends." After an experiment was carried out by Adams Rants to see how many users would blindly accept friend requests from strangers (and thus divulge potentially dangerous details), Bebo de-emphasised the contact sharing feature and changed it so users must "opt-in" to having their contact details shared.
Cyber-bullying can be a problem on social-networking sites such as Bebo, with some teenagers taking advantage of the anonymity of the Internet to abuse and ridicule their peers. Sock puppet accounts are often created solely for the purpose of bullying. Bebo offers a guide for parents about the problem of cyber-bullying on their home page.
Bebo has been accused of taking up so much of students' time that campus computers in various colleges and universities are blocked up by students accessing it, at the expense of students wishing to do genuine coursework. As a result, several Irish universities (including NUI Galway , Queen's University of Belfast and NUI Maynooth) and schools have blocked the site. It is still possible to access Bebo via proxy when it is blocked.
Concerns have been raised about potential risks to children from paedophiles accessing personal information contained in profiles. In Ireland, for example, the Sunday Tribune newspaper carried out an experiment whereby a reporter posing as a 13 year old girl set up an account, and proceeded to gather personal information and photos of other teenage girls.
In March 2006 Norfolk County Council is believed to have become the first LEA in the United Kingdom to order all schools in its authority to block the website from school computers due to it being used for "unsavoury activities".[1]
In various parts of the site, the user may experience errors in pages, such as photo albums not showing up, and links to content on a person's profile displaying the corresponding content from a different user's profile (often that of the previous profile viewed). This is a long-standing problem, but efforts are being made to fix it. [citation needed]
Many have criticized the number of Bebo invitational e-mails sent from the site, which have caused many people's e-mail inboxes to become clogged. However it would now seem that the number of invites being sent is in decline. [citation needed]
Internal spam is another problem. Some Bebo users send many un-solicited chain e-mails, wasting bandwidth, inbox space and time. These chain e-mails occasionally purport to be from the developers of Bebo, claiming that the recipient's account will be deleted or in some way curtailed unless the chain e-mail is forwarded to every one of their friends. These claims are in all cases false. Bebo has been forced to place a notice in the mail section of the site, reminding users that Bebo will never use chain e-mails as a means of communication. Other popular chain e-mail types are humorous stories, personality quizzes to be filled out, "petitions" for various causes, and e-mails which must be forwarded to avoid bad luck, or some other such superstition.
Bebo has also received harsh criticism for canceling people's profiles for no apparent reason. If more than 10 complaints are made to one user, their account is canceled, even if they have done nothing to the people who have made the "complaints". This means anyone can be shut out of Bebo just because false complaints have been made against them.[citation needed]
See also
References
- UCC Express, March 15, 2006