The site was purchased by AOL on March 13, 2008 for 0 million, with the Birches' combined 70% stake yielding a profit of 5 million from the deal. This was mainly due to the falling numbers of unique users; Bebo users were moving to rival site Facebook.

AOL said that Bebo could not compete with other social networking sites in its current state, and that the company could not commit to taking on the massive task to keep Bebo in the social network 'race'.

Bebo was youth based and the initial group of connections was based on others from the same school or schools they attended.

Profiles may be personalized by a design template that is the background of the user's profile, known as a skin.

The company announced the launch of their newest app, Blab, in early 2014 which closed in 2016.

eventually registering at least 10.7 million unique users.

Adam Levin, CEO of Bebo and Criterion Capital Partners, stated that they were trying to release some new features which caused the site to crash. The crash triggered a belief that Bebo was gone for good, so that the hashtag #bebomemories trended worldwide on Twitter.This consisted of a new, more modern header and home page, as well as a new profile layout option.Users could also see who had visited their profiles (a feature which could be changed in settings).Bebo is a social networking website launched in 2005.It now describes itself as "a company that dreams up ideas for fun social apps;" Grant Denholm, the man behind the Bebo relaunch, has confirmed that the site will not be returning as a social network but as a company that makes social apps.