AOL Scoops up Bebo for $850 million

This marks the second official M&A I've seen in the social media space this year (Prospero's acquisition by Mzinga being the first):

http://tinyurl.com/33mg92

It's natural to see a rash of acquisitions in the social networking vendor space like Prospero, given the number of vendors in this space. What makes Bebo stand out is that AOL now gets a huge global site and subscriber base (Bebo is #1 in UK, Ireland, and New Zealand and Bebo claims over 40 million global users) that they can leverage as a strong social media foundation to build beyond prior successes with AOL Instant Messaging.

Perhaps most importantly, this move also gives AOL additional advertising possibilities, something they'll need based on yesterday's announcement that Google has closed its deal to buy DoubleClick. This means that Google will now drive the text AND the banner ads you see; it's safe to assume that companies like AOL and Yahoo will have their hands full in this arena. Display advertising is one area where Google has historically lagged behind Yahoo, so it will be interesting to see what this does to their overall performance and to the advertising space in general.

Here's to an ever-changing web landscape!