Bebo IM Dies After One Month

When Bebo launched their IM service one month ago, we were there to break the news. Unfortunately not many other people found that news to be very interesting. Within a month the service was apparently shut down. Over the weekend Mashable was the first to notice that the service had disappeared. I was going to write an article as it happened but I forgot.

Why did I forget? I forgot because I don’t use Bebo IM! Facebook chat has proven to become a central IM service. Within months, it has become one of the primary chat platforms for me (then again I write about Facebook everyday). There is no word as to why Bebo decided to shut down the chat application but our guess is that not enough people were using the service.

There could have also been an issue with abuse. Bebo was recently acquired by AOL who has been trying to cobble together their diverse social products. Unlike Facebook and MySpace, the majority of Bebo traffic comes from abroad. Have you used the Bebo chat service? Are you concerned about it disappearing?

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