Bebo

NEW YORK, NY, 13 March 2008 - AOL announced today that it signed an agreement to acquire Bebo (http://www.bebo.com), a leading global social media network. Together with its AIM and ICQ network of personal communications, the acquisition is an AOL-premier position in the rapidly growing world of social media with a network of around 80 million users.

With a total membership of more than 40 million worldwide, Bebo is a global social media network connects the town, self-expression and entertainment to enable its users to consume, create, discover and share. Bebo is one of the leading social networks in Britain, and is the number one in Ireland and New Zealand, and the number three in the U.S. users are heavily involved and see an average of 78 pages per usage day. Bebo has around 100 employees in offices in the UK, San Francisco and Austin, TX.

The deal comes just a week after AOL start of the Open AIM 2.0, an initiative that allows the developer community more freedom to access the AIM network, AIM integrate into their websites and applications, and the announcement by Apple AIM on a downloadable application for the iPhone.

According to the agreement, AOL acquires Bebo for $ 850 million in cash.

“Bebo is the perfect complement to AOL’s personal communications network and enables us in a leading position in Social Media,” said Randy Falco, chairman and CEO of AOL. “What has led us to Bebo was their key and fast-growing global user base, its vision of a truly social network, and sales opportunities that the platform-A in our combined global audience. These positions, we offer advertisers even greater reach and marketer significant insights into the wishes and needs of consumers. ”

AOL understands the shifting dynamics of the Web and has clearly demonstrated its commitment to use the ever-growing power of social networks, “said President Bebo, Joanna Shields. “With the same vision in this area, it was a natural development for Bebo to AOL, and we look forward to working to continue to expand the global online social experience.”

“Bebo the dynamic management team recognizes that the Internet is less about objective and more about connecting people, culture and way of life,” said Ron Grant, President and COO, AOL. “This acquisition supports our key objectives - the acceleration of growth, commitment and sales of one of the most active online communities.”

After completion of the transaction, current president Joanna Shields will continue running, Bebo and will report to Ron Grant.

Analyst eMarketer predicts that by 2011, $ 4.1 billion will be spent worldwide for social network advertising - a dramatic increase in the $ 480 million in 2006. In 2008 alone, overall ad spending in the social networking arena is expected to increase by 75% year on year, amounting to $ 2.1 billion (eMarketer, Social Network Marketing: Ad spending and use, December 2007).

In recent months, AOL has aggressively to strengthen its position in areas of vital importance for his emergence as one of the leading advertising-supported Web media and marketing companies.
Building on its number one position in third display with Advertising.com, AOL has nearly 1 billion U.S. dollars in online advertising acquisitions, including market leaders like ADTECH, buy.at, Lightning Cast, Quigo, TACODA and Third Screen Media to create a platform - A. A platform is the top display ad serving network focuses on support marketers build brands that online .* Web content, AOL’s revitalized network of websites has experienced five months in a row page view growth and the major categories such as music, television, Moviefone, TMZ, Money & Finance, news, lifestyle and body are all in the first four places in their respective categories.

As part of its international growth plans, AOL has 17 international Web sites in recent years and has plans to expand to 30 countries outside the U.S. by the end of 2008. In addition, AOL is working with HP last September at localized versions of the AOL.com portal and other services from AOL as the default setting on HP computers shipped in the United States and throughout the world. Bebo, has announced plans to introduce in five countries this year, will be prominently featured in AOL’s international expansion efforts after the deal is closed.

Since its founding, Bebo has a radically new vision for online media and marketing commitment, the combination of community, self-expression and entertainment, so that their members to consume, create, discover, curate and share digital content in a completely new Routes. Bebo global commitment users have high levels of expenditure on average 33 minutes per day on the site. His groundbreaking Open Media Platform is the beginning of a new route for Bebo users to experience online content, while the global media companies such as MTV, CBS, BBC and more than 400 others, a new way to promote, distribute and money earn their programming. “Commitment marketing,” Bebo is the initiative for brands to build long-term relationships with their target groups. Today there are trademarks of Apple to use Nike Bebo as a platform to establish ongoing discussions with the consumers.

Bebo pioneer in the blending of Web-native original content with interactivity in the social networking environment through co-production of “Kate Modern,” the most successful TV show on the Web, now in its second season, soon followed by the premiere “Sophia’s Diary “And the upcoming” Gap Year “. In December 2007, Bebo opened its platform to external application developers always the first to embrace social network and both Facebook Open Social APIs. To date, more than 1500 applications have joined the network.

AOL was advised by Banc of America Securities LLC and Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. Bebo was advised by Allen & Co.

AOL and Bebo management will host a conference call from 9:00 clock ET to discuss the daily news.

The dialing instructions for the call are:

In the United States: 888-730-9143
Outside the U.S.: 210-839-8553
Passcode: AOL-Update

Please select at least ten to fifteen minutes before the call to the Scheduled start to ensure that you are connected in time for the beginning of the conversation.

Note to editors: photos, logos and video from today’s announcement is available on the AOL corporate site http://corp.aol.com.