14 DAY TRIAL // The great Google turned about some shortcomings in the last fiscal quarters, mostly due to not being able to monetize its advertising on the MySpace social network. With an earful of criticism and hurt pride, the Mountain View-based company simply cannot turn away from the segment and admit its defeat.
According to a rumor heard by Tech Crunch's Erick Schonfeld, Bebo is shopping itself once again and Google is more than interested in adding it to its array. The move would almost double the number of unique users that Google manages to draw to its already existing social network, orkut, that has some 25 million worldwide visitors. Google's already existing social network has one major flaw about it, that it never really caught on with the English speaking population while being widely popular in Latin America and India.
Bebo has a good fan base in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand and the eventual adding of these countries would grant Google a better shot at market leader MySpace, while also crippling fresh upstart Facebook. And by the way, if this move is to go through, it will most definitely show just how flexible Google is and the capability to react quickly in resolving the problems encountered. While Microsoft struggled for a while with its Internet approach and just now decided to approach Yahoo! (it did that last year as well, but there was no chance in hell it would've happened) and may have to borrow some money to make the deal go through, Google dips its hand into the bank account and simply pulls out whatever is needed, like tipping when you're not that sober.
MySpace, on the other hand, would benefit from Bebo's clean of clutter look, while managing to add the latest features. Additionally, and perhaps incidentally, some of the countries that did not embrace News Corp's social network are exactly those that Bebo has a strong presence in, and if it wants to dominate the market from now on, it must take care of every market in particular.
It's too early to say anything for certain, but when push comes to shove, I think Google will shove its hands deeper in its pockets and grab just enough to overbid MySpace.