Bebo lives! The old social network is now trying to make a comeback in a different form, as a messaging app that allows users to express their moods with a cool hashtag system.
For those of you who haven’t got a clue, Bebo was one of the early social networks founded back in 2005, that battled head-to-head with Myspace in the good old days. That is before the entire platform went down the drains and got filled with dick drawings. Founders of Bebo, Michael Birch and Xochi Birch, closed doors for the social network in 2013 after taking back the ownership of the company, promising a revamped relaunch. And now, living up to the promise they have revived Bebo. Just not as the way we thought it would be, but better.
I took the Bebo beta app for a ride to test out its features. This messaging app is quite different from Whatsapp, Viber or any other in the smartphone market. Bebo comes with a unique approach into messaging that allows us to have fun with conversations. Just as the new slogan says, it’s “probably not for boring people.”
After signing up, you are presented with the task of creating a cartoon version of yourself. There are a load of customizations to mess around with. After that you can simply look for your friends, add them up and start messaging. But, instead of just typing boring words, lol and stuff, Bebo encourages you to use hashtags to express your mood, activity or even feelings.
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For example, let’s say your friend just said something really nasty and you just feel like slapping them right in the face. You can do that with Bebo using the #slap hashtag, which sends a cartoon showing you slapping your friend. Or if you want to tell your friend that you’re gaming and don’t want to be disturbed, just use #gaming hashtag and it will do the trick for you. These are only a couple of the hundreds of hashtags you can use in Bebo. Every hashtag has its own cartoon image so you can visualize your conversations easily.
Clearly, Bebo founders have realized that trying to make social networks cool again is not going to work with today’s internet-frenzy, Instagramming crowd. Google+ and the revamped Myspace made it pretty clear. However, this new messaging app seems like a pretty cool idea and I actually liked the way it allowed me to share what I’m doing with a cartoon character. Saved me a lot of typing.
Bebo beta rolled out to only a few selected users. The iOS and Android versions of the app will be released for everyone in the coming weeks.
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Follow @nrjperera – Roshan Jerad Perera
