bye bye bebo

I remember when I first heard of Facebook.  An ex pupil invited me to be a friend.  I wasn't much interested, partly because I don't really like to be Facebook friends with ex pupils, at least not for a while after they have left my seating plans, but mostly because I was a Bebo person.  I had joined Bebo to keep in touch with my sisters, and didn't see the point of joining two social networking sites.

It wasn't long before Facebook made a second attempt to win me over.  It seemed that many of my English friends were on Facebook, while my NI friends were on Bebo.  So I joined, and before I knew it, almost everyone I was friends with on Bebo were doing the same thing.  For a while there I maintained both, then I just maintained Facebook and just checked Bebo.  And then along came my iPhone.  As most of my internet activity switched over from my laptop to my phone, Bebo suffered from having a crap app, while Facebook kept coming up with fab new features and was just easier to use.

Now that AOL is threatening to close Bebo down, I decided to tidy up my wee bit of it.  Photos 'n' stuff deleted, I closed my profile.  Bebo was very nice about it; "Your membership of Bebo.com has now been cancelled. Thank you for using the service. You are welcome to join again at any time."  It's a nice offer, but presumably it's got a sell by date!  Anyway, sniping aside, something unexpected happened:  I was sad.  Bebo was my first foray into the world of social networking.  It was an exciting new concept, a brave new world, where I had to rely on the wisdom and expertise of younger people to know what to do, and where I could keep in touch with people who I might otherwise be more distant from.  Today I have moved on from Bebo, but not from social networking.  I write this blog, I facebook, I twitter both personally and professionally, and I share photos on flickr. Thanks Bebo for taking me on those first steps.  You will be fondly remembered.