That’s an understatment. What do the Bebo founders think of reports AOL (NYSE: TWX) wants to sell Bebo, less than a year after buying it from them for $850 million? Says serial entrepreneur Paul Birch, brother of Michael Birch, still hungover (via TechFluff.tv): “It’s only mildly disappointing. We’re financially disconnected from it it so it’s not going to affect us from that perspective. It’s always nice to think that you’ve sold something and the buyer’s gone on to enjoy value, but we live in a fast-moving world and that doesn’t always happen.” Translation: the sale’s been done and we’ve moved on, so what’s the big deal? (video after the jump).
Bebo, AOL and owner Time Warner have all denied last week’s unattributed report that AOL wants to sell the social net for a big loss. But paidContent:UK understands it did realise, quite soon after the acquisition, what a costly move it had made. Word has it Bebo, following the deal, promised AOL something “really cool” by December. Bebo’s main product launch since the acquisition has been its Social Inbox aggregator, which puts it up there with Facebook and others trying monetise feed-based media during the advertising downturn.