Bebo... then facebook!

Remember the good old days when all your friends used to have a Bebo page?
This was not so long ago (well about 4 years ago in my case), and now we have facebook as a replacement. Just in case you didn’t know, Bebo still does exist. The log-in procedure, the profile layout, there is no change in the system either. So what happened, between us and bebo that brought the devastating good-bye?

Bebo and Facebook are both a social networking sites (SNS). You can upload photos, write comments on your friends’ profile page, join a group, and change your display photo on both sites. The basic idea and functionalities are the same in these two different SNS. So how did we come to favour one over the other?

To start with, one of the interesting things Bebo let us have control over was to choose our own skin (the background). There were thousands of different skin designs that you could choose from, or you could even make your own! AMAZING! This way, you could express your identity through the skin as well, by the design, by the pictures on them, by the colour and etc. But really, there came the stage where you couldn’t find the right skin that defined you. I remember, I even tried to MAKE MY OWN, only to find myself failing miserably on the next minute.

Also, Bebo had a section that showed your friends, just as there is on facebook. But, Bebo called it ‘Top Friends’ and make us do the hard selection. For me personally, it was really hard to decide on who my top friends are. Since primary, I haven’t really made any distinctions among my friends, as to who is the better friend of mine, and I’m sure a lot of you have thought the same thing. HOW OLD ARE WE (or WERE WE), REALLY?

Ahh, and the hearts we could give out to our friends. For the first few weeks, giving out hearts and getting them back was pretty fun. But it got boring and tiring. I used to be stressed over whom to give the heart to each day (HAHA) and logged into bebo just for the sake of giving out hearts, cause you only got one each day. It was like an online peer pressure, almost.

Facebook gives us no choice, or in a positive manner, it allows no differentiation and we don’t have to bother. I guess this allowed us to spend less time, or even no time in customizing our page, hence extending the time in which we actually communicate with others online, and maybe this factor brought upon the success of Facebook.

So… sorry Bebo, it’s not you, it’s us. You gave us too much freedom that we couldn’t handle. Sorry.