Last month, Michael Birch, the founder of the once-popular social networking site Bebo, reacquired the platform for a fraction of the price he sold it for in 2008.
Besides releasing a tongue-in-cheek video previewing the relaunch of the network, the company have been reluctant to release details about its ongoing development.
I caught up with Bebo’s new CEO, Shaan Puri.
The network is currently being promoted through a self-deprecating satire of a corporate video. What was the thinking behind this?
It took a series of simple decisions:
Firstly to decide not to be boring. Most companies just put up a text landing page with a paragraph that says “sorry…blah blah…coming soon.”
Secondly to decide to be honest. I hate when brands try to make a ‘cool comeback’ when they haven’t been relevant in years. You can’t throw money at the problem, hire celebrities and run fancy advertisements. People are too smart to be fooled. We are going to refresh the brand now that it’s back in the hands of its original founders, but before you can move forward, you must acknowledge the present first. It was a risk, but so far the reaction has been tremendous. People like that we chose to do something funny, honest and self-deprecating.
A brand is an embodiment of the people behind it. Michael and I like to joke around, and don’t take things too seriously. So for us, doing a spoof corporate video sounded like fun.
The new Bebo is launching initially as mobile-only. Why?
The concept we have for the new Bebo really works as a mobile app. This is fortunate, because the idea we are excited about for the new Bebo fits into a huge trend right now of people being connected via smartphones.
The social networking landscape is so changeable and unpredictable. Bebo’s rise and fall epitomizes this. Why do big companies still invest so willingly?
I think there are two reasons:
1. Its really unlikely that a large company built around a completely different type of business model would ever internally create a social product that wins over the masses. Big companies find it hard to innovate outside of their core product. Yahoo would never be able to create Tumblr from scratch. Even Google has struggled to do it with Google+.
2. Social networks grow fast, and have incredible network effects. Even companies that understand ‘social’, such as Facebook, find it hard to compete with the Snapchats and Instagrams of the world. Once the big companies notice a startup is worth copying, the startup has built up too much velocity with its viral growth to be stopped.
What lessons have you learnt from the mistakes of other social networks?
Good question. I think the biggest lesson is that the social products that succeed are non-obvious. They sound silly, or like toys at first. Facebook, Twitter, and most recently, Snapchat. Next thing you know, they’ve disrupted everything.
There has been a lot of press recently about harassment on social networking sites. How should they police their communities?
Like any community, it starts with the people you attract, and the value system they are buying into when they join the site. Luckily, Michael has unique experience in growing a social network from just a few users to many millions, and is familiar with the challenges of managing a community through each phase of growth.
What has presented the greatest challenge in the development of the new Bebo?
We are doing two things at once, which is always tricky. On one hand, we’re rebuilding the image of Bebo, and at the same time, we’re building the actual product. Both need to be done very well for us to succeed.
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