Entrepreneur Adam Levin, however, purchased the site for a fraction of AOL’s fee.  Nevertheless, he has an optimistic strategy for returning the brand to a respected position.  The website still has nearly 120 million registered users, with 13 million using the site at least once a month.  The potential for growth exists, as Levin plans to segment Bebo into the tween market, as Facebook gains an older demographic base. It could work, if he is able to gain traction within the mobile marketplace.  But it must be fast.

Understandably, once your parents start parroting your actions, the edge is gone.  It’s a parable that stays true despite the era.  Coupled with this transition into a new market base, Levin switched advertising from AOL’s advertising scale, meaning that it can gain more revenue through setting its own fees.  It can also extract strong PPC rates through mobile technology.  According to the Wall Street Journal, 14% of users access the site through a mobile device. The article also mentions that Bebo is working on a mobile site that will not eat into tween’s limited data service plans.

I think one way to combat that barrier is to align the site with family carrier plans.  Once the site gains more credibility with tweens, they can persuade the parents to purchase a plan with free access, where everyone benefits in a transaction.  If they can strike a partnership with someone like Verizon, it could do a lot towards reinvigorating the brand.  McDonald’s was able to market children’s toys from recognizable programming that continued persistent chattering from the child to the parent, and foot traffic generates forever with this small strategy.  Let’s see what Levin has up his sleeve.