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Revision as of 14:33, 30 March 2006 by Irishrichy (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Bebo is a social networking website created to enable friends to stay in contact. It has developed into an online community where friends can post pictures, write blogs and send messages to one another, and is similar in format to MySpace. The site has been increasing in popularity since the end of 2005, and currently has an Alexa Internet traffic ranking of 590 .
Users create an account (or respond to an invitation), then invite their friends to do the same, so that they can see their account. In the event that a friend changes their postal addresses, email addresses, phone numbers or other details, he or she will be notified of the fact, and will therefore always have up to date contact information. Bebo also allows users to post comments in various sections of a users account such as pictures, blogs, white board and the users account home page.
Recently (February 32006) Bebo has integrated (on windows only) with Skype, a popular VOIP service. This enables users to contact each other using Skype directly from their profiles, and marks a big move forward in online communication integration.
It is especially popular in Ireland, where it claims over 500,000 members, meaning that more than 1 in 8 people in Ireland are a member.
Criticisms
Bebo was initially criticised for its poor protection of users personal information such as phone numbers and home addresses. To prove how dangerous Bebo could be an experiment was carried out by Adams Rants to see how many other users were displaying potentially dangerous details in their profiles. Once the results were sent to Bebo staff, the user details bar, which was located just below the blog, was removed.
Bebo has been accused of taking up so much of students' time that campus computers in various colleges are blocked up by students accessing it, at the expense of students wishing to do genuine coursework.
Many secondary school students have been disciplined for comments made about teachers on Bebo.
External links
References
- UCC Express, March 15, 2006
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