Bought by AOL, this social network service has been gaining ground in the United States, it’s been nothing but good news and consistent growth. Extraordinarily popular in the UK, Bebo is beginning to give some of the other social networking sites a real run for their money. Like other sites you can personalize your profile, add apps, set privacy settings and join groups.
However, we found that navigation and friend finding on Bebo to be a bit difficult, and although they take great pride in their security settings, we found that it was a little overboard.
When you register with Bebo you are assigned a user name. This name also becomes a part of your personal URL. Although you don’t have a choice in your user name it is close to your name and fairly easy to remember. Our assigned name was the first name of the account, last initial and some numbers.
Bebo profiles are a lot of fun and there is a huge number of personalization choices. There is a large database of skins for you to choose from. Skins are submitted by other Bebo users, and unlike some third-party MySpace skins, there is no risk for spyware or viruses. Although you can’t farther customize your profile with HTML or CSS code the skins are versatile enough to please most users.
Bebo also performs most of the basic functions common to social networking like adding comments, photos, blogs and apps. Photos can be commented on, emailed and tagged. We liked that you could rearrange your profile by dragging and dropping your modules. With just a few farther customization options Bebo would blow MySpace profiles out of the water.
Bebo is the only site we reviewed that automatically defaulted your profile to private. If you want your profile public you have to manually change your security settings. Also, Bebo suggests that members under 21 only include the first letter of their last names as a safety precaution. You can also limit the ages of people you want contacting you by setting a minimum and maximum age in your account settings.
With regards to specific users you can block users, report spam and report abuse. There is also a safety link located at the bottom of every Bebo page with a fun video explaining safety concerns and privacy settings. It’s definitely worth checking out.
We were a little surprised that Bebo didn’t have a dedicated link on your profile edit page to set privacy. Your privacy settings are bunched in with all your other profile edit options. Additionally, we would have liked a few additional options, like limiting the appearance of certain models to only friends or friends of friends, other than just giving the option to make your profile public or private.
Bebo’s networking features are comprehensive, but there is nothing particularly spectacular about them. It includes all the basics like instant messaging (through AIM or Windows Live), photo tags, videos and music. Bebo does have a deal with Skype in which you install the application and when other users can see you are available on Skype, you can talk to them directly over your computer like a telephone.
The video section includes connections to Metacafe, CBS, Spike TV and more. You can also watch armature videos posted on the Internet as webisodes. There are also hundreds of music selections and music videos from a huge variety of genres such as club, rap, hip–hop, hardcore, techno, Christian, country, pop, punk and R&B—to name just a few. They also encourage local bands to post their profiles on Bebo for personal promotion.
We did find the groups section a little disappointing. Bebo allows users to create and join groups, however, the organization of the groups in disjointed and difficult to navigate. You can’t browse by category; they are all just clumped together.
Beboers can only browse featured profiles. You can’t freely browse or search for Beboers by specific criteria. This adds a level of security that many sites do not have; however, it also limits Beboers’ ability to expand their network of friends.
To search for friends you have to upload your address book to Bebo and they will find your friends' profiles through their email addresses. Or you can type in individual email addresses and hunt for your friends that way. You cannot simply search the Bebo database by name, school or city.
We happen to find Bebo’s help files and FAQ section very entertaining. They are not just your bland everyday FAQ answers; they address the user with a very casual and humorous tone while still getting the point across. Additionally you can contact Bebo using their email support form.
Bebo’s security is seriously locked down; therefore, the chance of receiving unsolicited email from creepy people around the world is cut to almost nothing. In the time we had our Bebo account we did not get one message that wasn’t from a person we didn’t know, or a friend of a friend. Bebo encourages you to know your friends in real life before they become part of your network online.
Bebo still has its work cut if they want to oust the top two social networking services, but judging by their popularity in the UK and Ireland it is only a matter of time before they become a United States sensation. Although we like the seriousness with which Bebo addresses security we would like to see better search or browse features and more privacy setting customizations.
