SURF’S UP

The success of Facebook may be the talk of the town, says David Crow, but a number of serious competitors are catching up fast

Although Facebook is getting more attention than any of its competitors, its success in this crowded, highly-competitive market is far from guaranteed. With little brand loyalty and virtually no deference, the young consumers that flock to its pages will not think twice before upping sticks and going elsewhere. Here, The Business presents its guide to Facebook’s biggest threats in 2008.

Bebo

Facebook’s growth was bolstered by users who were fed up with the commercialisation of Rupert Murdoch’s MySpace. Now it is Facebook that consumers grumble about; hundreds of new applications might have added features, but they detract from the once clean interface. With around 40m members, Bebo is the world’s third most popular social network and is the obvious choice for Facebook refugees. For customers aged 15-24, the site is already top dog, pulling 4.3m unique users in November, compared to 3.3m for Facebook and 3m for MySpace. Panel-based web stats do not record users under the age of 15, another area where Bebo is thought to be ahead, helping it to win lucrative deals with confectionary firms like Mars, which paid a six-figure sum to advertise Skittles on the site.

Bebo is also a big hit in Britain, second only to market-leader Facebook. In November, it pulled in an impressive 11.3m British unique users, compared to 12.1m for Facebook and 9.2m for MySpace. But user statistics only tell half the story. Increasingly, advertisers want to know how long a website can keep a customer hooked – also known as “stickiness” – and this is another area where Bebo comes up trumps. Users spend an average of 33 minutes a day on its site, compared to 28 minutes for Facebook and 23 minutes for MySpace.

Bebo, founded by husband and wife team Michael and Xochi Birch, is looking to build on this success, and has launched Open Media, a platform that allows third-party companies to distribute their content on the site. Any media firm – from conglomerate to indie record label – can launch a channel and add new customers; the platform is closed to amateurs. Partners in the scheme decide how much content to give away and can embed clips with their own ads. Existing partners include the BBC, Sky and CBS, all of which are keen to find an online video solution where they control copyright, unlike Google’s YouTube. Bebo wants the new content to spur its growth, hoping that, in time, the Facebook Generation could instead be dubbed the Bebo Boomers.