On top of the buzz of Microsoft trying to buy Yahoo over the past week, Google has been making some acquisition waves of their own : despite these moves currently being rumors.
Google has been whispered to be going after two very different social networking companies : Bebo and Plaxo.
Bebo & Google :
Bebo is a generalized social network, like Orkut or MySpace would be, with a very solid global following. Erik Schonfield of TechCrunch feels that this is almost a done deal and is “51% sure” the deal will happen. As strong as Orkut is in Brazil and Friendster is in the Pacific Rim, Bebo has a very strong following in the UK and its common wealths; Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.
Google would be fortifying itself and its search engine in these markets, which it already dominates and does quite well in. Furthermore, with 21 million users, Bebo would double Google’s hold on social networking, as it now enjoys 24 million users in Orkut.
On the other hand, Google has experienced challenges monetizing MySpace with its Google Search & AdWords partnership. Actually acquiring Bebo could help however, since then no revenue split in the ad network would lead to lowering monetization – nor would the threat of a partner pulling out and going with a Google competitor; like Microsoft-Yahoo!
Plaxo & Google :
According to Megan McCarthy at Wired, Plaxo is on the market for $200 million and Google has become its suitor. Plaxo is a social style application but way different than Bebo and more similar to LinkedIn. Plaxo lets its users keep all of their contacts and address books in a centralized location online.
Furthermore, Plaxo also has open social networking deals via Plaxo Pulse which lets users stay connected with business contacts across various platforms such as Flickr, Digg, Twitter and other social scenes, producing a social map of your connections and what they’re doing online.
Given Google’s interest in competing with Facebook by delivering its own social map via its open social projects, Plaxo seems like it would be a very relevant fit into the Google model. Furthermore, services like LinkedIn and Facebook continue to grow as business networking clients. Google needs to be in this industry and Plaxo would get it there almost instantly, connecting Google users via their Google Profiles and Google Accounts.
If a social network has to rely on advertising revenue as it’s business model, then those ads need to be in the context of what the user DOES on the site. Google adwords is about “search”, social adwords need to be about “action”. If I like uploading photos and viewing photos then I should see ads related to photos (software, cameras etc)…..but for gods sake not targeted by keyword, targeted by user action.
Sure action can be mapped to keyword, but none of the social networks are doing that right now.
Good point Marc, and Google does this to an extent on MySpace. Their AdSense ads are now much more targeted to the information users place in their profiles.
For example : You like Pearl Jam, Google served ads for Pearl Jam ringtones.
But they have to go beyond that :)
This add up of Bebo to Google would not be that big change as Google is already a vast resource and the largest and best search engine on the Internet.
As a note on Bebo’s market in Ireland….they really took over as the first social network site for Irish people, but now, a recent trend in the past year has led most bebo users over to facebook and myspace. I wonder if bebo will always be in the mix or will it fall off soon as the trend seems to show….
@Brain
This year will be the social network shakeout.
Only the top 3 or so will survive, Facebook, MySpace and Orkut. The rest are already looking for buyers even prior to this year.
There are lots of social networks and they want to acquire bebo despite the revenue problem? i think they have something in mind.
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