Spotlight: Bebo in the U.K.

I am offically a 'Beboer'. 

When I researched Bebo.com I found it was very popular in the U.K. as well as Ireland. 

It was a pretty basic, what you would expect, social network site, but had a cool, funky feel to it.  While personalization was a major feature, interactivity with others was not. 

I worried I would never make a friend on this site, becuase it was impossible to even find a friend unless you knew the first and last name of someone on the site.  I of course, did not, since all of my friends are on Facebook, however I found a way around it. 

I typed in a couple of names that were friends names or would most likely be a common name.  For example, Tim Jones.  In doing this a couple of people came up and I friended them all hoping someone, anyone would be my friend.  I did this with a couple of names.

You could say this network went overboard with privacy settings, and perhaps that is desirable for many people, but for my purpose of exploring social networks it makes it really damn hard.

Upon looking at reviews of Bebo, I found they have some of the highest ratings in security and that the default setting for profiles is private. 

All of this didn't stop me in making a friend though! Tim Jones, a  fireman from Australia informed me that Bebo is also very popular in Australia and New Zeland!  Unfortunatley, as soon as we got talking Tim had to leave to go "surfing with his mates" but hopefully I will hear from my new friend again soon. 

Another girl I friended, Sarah Henry, who accepted my request, claimed to be 21 on her profile but in reality was only 16 years old.  Although we didn't talk, she had a lot of drama in her life from the looks of her comments page.  One of her friends was "moving to the States to live with her baby's daddy" and although she and her best friend were in a huge fight she, "STILL LOVES HER LIKE A SISTER".    

Below you can see my profile, with the timeline.  This unique feature shows all my activity on bebo in an interactive timeline.  More on Bebo later, hopefully with some converstion from Tim and juicy drama from Sarah.