AOL People Networks today announced the launch of Bebo across a series
of key European territories, and opened its doors to established and
emerging media brands AlloCiné, Clipfish, Telecom Italia owned Yalp!,
Diagonal View and Preview Networks’ Filmtrailer.
Bebo is a social experience that helps individuals discover what's going
on with their world and helps the world discover what’s going on with
them. Bebo’s Lifestream platform affords users a simple way to connect
and keep up with everyone and everything they care about irrespective of
which medium they use or where the activity takes place, be it on
YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, Myspace or another site.
Translated in French, German, Italian, Spanish and Dutch, the new Bebo
experience in each of these territories (www.bebo.com)*,
marks Bebo’s continued international expansion. Bebo has already gained
a strong following as a social experience in the U.K., U.S., Ireland,
Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Poland with more than 22 million**
unique visitors worldwide.
"The proven success of our platform in the UK and Ireland positions us
well to expand into these dynamic continental European markets. The
social networking audience is growing rapidly and our new sites will
allow local users to connect with other users, entertainment and brands,
both globally and locally. The richness of our experience lies in the
user’s ability to express him or herself – as evidenced in our new
Lifestory feature – and in the ability to connect to people, media and
brands through the Lifestream and our Open Media Platform,” said Nicole
Vanderbilt, VP International, Bebo."
On Bebo, users connect with both existing friends and with other users
who share common interest and similar tastes. Through the Open Media
platform and the Lifestream, they can discover and share the media they
love wherever it lives. With the new international expansion, the social
network is adding several channels of premium entertainment content from
major local and global entertainment brands and emerging media companies.
Bebo’s new media partners, including AlloCiné, RTL’s Clipfish, Telecom
Italia owned Yalp!, Diagonal View and Preview Networks’ Filmtrailer will
be incorporated in Bebo’s groundbreaking Open Media platform. RTL’s
Clipfish and Telecom Italia owned Yalp!
will allow users easy access to a plethora of premium content in their
local language, while AlloCiné, the leading European portal dedicated to
cinema and TV series, will launch four new channels on Bebo as TV series
progammes (latest news in TV series), cinema programmes (latest news in
the film world) and upcoming trailers www.bebo.com/allocine).
AlloCiné will also launch 4 channels in the UK showcasing trailers for
films ‘out this week’, upcoming films, interviews and special reports (www.bebo.com/screenrush),
and in France Merci Qui! - a dedicated programme to classic movies (www.bebo.com/merciqui).
Clipfish, one of Germany's leading video portals, will offer selective
channels on Bebo Germany including popular formats such as: Clipfish
comedian Daniele Rizzo (www.bebo.com/danielerizzo)
and his interviews with movie stars from around the world; Astroclip,
the Clipfish Astrology Channel with video horoscopes for younger
audiences, and moviemag with reviews of all major movie launches in
Germany. Furthermore, the parties plan to allow Bebo users in Germany to
use Clipfish on Bebo's German video upload page, and plan to include on
each video on (www.clipfish.de)
an icon to ‘share this video’, enabling users to share Clipfish video
with their friends on Bebo Germany.
Mathias Blüm, Managing Director of Clipfish, added: "We are glad to team
up with Bebo for its launch in Germany. Bebo offers an excellent
platform to distribute a range of Clipfish channels and help us reach a
different audience. We are looking forward to a successful partnership,
and plan to offer further channels in the future."
Finally, Filmtrailer will allow users in France, Germany, Italy, Spain
and the Netherlands easy access to a plethora of the latest Hollywood
releases in their local language.
“Bebo understands how their next-gen users interact with entertainment
content”, commented Heather Stevenson of Preview Networks. “We are
pleased to be able to provide a quality offering of local language
cinema trailers for this community to interact with.”
To increase viral opportunities for media owners and publishers, Bebo
has created a "Share on Bebo” (http://www.bebo.com/c/share/help)
button for publisher sites, making it simple to implement and creating a
two-way conversation between the publisher and Bebo platform. When a
user shares his or her favourite media content, a status update will
appear in the user’s "sayings" and in their "Lifestream”, virally
spreading the news to his or her entire network and driving traffic back
to the media owner or publisher.
Bebo forms the centrepiece of the AOL People Networks business unit.
People Networks' collection of community platforms help improve people’s
lives by connecting them with everyone and everything they care about.
People Networks does this through a web-based experience on Bebo.com,
through desktop clients and mobile devices. At the heart of People
Networks is the Lifestream, a real-time, platform for aggregating and
distributing social feeds across mediums.
Notes to Editor:
Open Media: Established in November 2007 as a way for media companies to
promote, distribute and monetize their programming, while giving users a
new way to experience content online, Open Media allows users to
explore, store and curate within their personal profiles their favourite
global video content. They can then virally distribute that content
throughout their 'friends network' and the wider Bebo community. MTV,
CBS, BBC and more than 500 others are already a part of Open Media.
* Bebo.com is geo-targeted to show country specific content based on an
individual’s location and IP address
About Bebo
Bebo is your life online. It is a social experience the helps you
discover what's going on with your world and helps the world discover
what’s going on with you. Bebo has more than 22 million** unique
visitors worldwide and on the days that they use Bebo, they spend an
average of 25 minutes** on the site.
Bebo forms part of the AOL People Networks business unit which combines
Bebo, the AIM (excluding AIM Mail) and ICQ personal communications
networks, widget technology company Goowy Media, social search and
answer service Yedda, social aggregation service Socialthing! and
Userplane. People Networks' collection of community platforms reaches 93
million*** unduplicated users worldwide. Bebo is a wholly owned
subsidiary of AOL LLC, a majority-owned subsidiary of Time Warner Inc.
Source for metrics data in this release: |
** ComScore Media Metrix, January 2009 |
*** Custom AOL-defined People Networks report, based on comScore Media Metrix Audience Duplication report (January 2009) |
About AlloCiné
AlloCine’s mission is to inform and entertain audiences in film and TV
series in France and Europe. With more than 6 million unique visitors*,
70% of the internet film audience and 25 million videos** viewed
monthly, AlloCine is the undisputed source for movie information in
France.
AlloCine has adapted its content model and services for the UK territory
with www.screenrush.co.uk
and Spain with www.sensacine.com
but also in Germany with the acquisition of the third cinema website www.filmstarts.de.
** Nielsen NetRatings, January 2009 |
* SmartAdserver, January 2009 |
|
URL Merci Qui! : bebo.com/merciqui |
URL LaMinute! : bebo.com/laminute |
URL Upcoming trailers: bebo.com/allocine |
URL Tueurs en Séries! : bebo.com/tueureenseries |
URL Screenrush: bebo.com/screenrush |
About Diagonal View
Diagonal View (www.diagonal-view.com)
is a digital production house, jointly owned by ITN’s archive division,
ITN Source (www.itnsource.com),
and digital entrepreneur Matt Heiman. Diagonal View packages quirky and
unique archive content from ITN Source’s one million hours of footage
and syndicates it to commercial partners. Withover 150m views since its
launch in March 2008, Diagonal View is growing in popularity on social
networks and online outlets across the globe.
URL Diagonal View:
http://www.bebo.com/diagonal-view-fr
http://www.bebo.com/diagonal-view-de
About Clipfish
As subsidiary of RTL interactive GmbH Clipfish is the Videoclip-Portal
of RTL Television, Germany's most popular and successful television
channel. According to a survey of "Verband Deutscher
Zeitschriftenverleger" at the end of 2007 (Association of German
Magazine Publishers) Clipfish is the best-known brand for video portals
and social networks in Germany. About 2 Million Unique User per month
(Source: AGOF internet facts III 2008) are viewing exclusive content of
RTL and other exclusive content partners plus user generated content on
the entertainment platform. On a daily basis up to 3 million videos are
viewed. For advertisers Clipfish is an ideal platform for effective
branding campaigns and for placing video ads with a broad reach.
Furthermore Clipfish offers creative, interactive and crossmedial
marketing solutions with a high viral spreading capability. Clipfish,
marketed by IP Deutschland, is also accesible for mobiles and handhelds
via mobil.clipfish.de with a "best of" Clipfish.
About Preview Networks’ Filmtrailer.com
Preview Networks was established in 2004 with the goal of becoming the
leading international syndication company for the entertainment industry
operating in the major European markets. The company operates in nine
European markets dealing with more than 100 entertainment content
distributors and 1.000 online media partners including MSN, Bebo,
DailyMotion, The Guardian, MTVN, and Brightcove. Our consumer website,
Filmtrailer.com, is a film enthusiast site dedicated to all the latest
film trailers from local arthouse to large studio productions. From this
site, partners can syndicate film trailers across the Internet using our
embed, XML and podcast services to allow the broadest possible audience
to share the best quality, current movie trailers. The latest local
language movie trailers are available on our local sites in the
following countries UK, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Denmark,
Italy, Spain and France.
For more info, www.previewnetworks.com
or consumer site www.filmtrailer.com.
UK: www.bebo.com/filmtrailer
France: www.bebo.com/filmtrailerfrance
Germany: www.bebo.com/filmtrailerDeutsche
Spain: www.bebo.com/es-filmtrailer
Holland: www.bebo.com/filmtrailernederland
Italy: www.bebo.com/filmtraileritalia
AOL People Networks
Sarah Gavin, +44 (0)20 7291 4903
sarah@beboinc.com
or
Bebo
Alex
Brown, +44 (0)20 7291 4918
alex@beboinc.com
or
Diagonal
View
John Nolan, +44 (0)20 7430 4216
John.Nolan@itn.co.uk
or
RTL
(Clipfish)
Thomas Bodemer
Thomas.Bodemer@rtl.de
or
Preview
Networks/Filmtrailer.fr
+45 70 27 87 77
press@previewnetworks.com
