Update 2: PaidContent reports confirmation:

Per Wednesday’s speculation, LA private equity firm Criterion Capital Partners has confirmed it’s buying social network Bebo from AOL.

Anyone who’s shocked that AOL is giving up on Bebo will probably feel a lot more understanding after viewing new stats from Hitwise.  Indeed, the real question a graph seems to raise is not whether AOL’s right to back away, but whether any potential buyers will surface.

View the carnage for yourself below.  As you can see, Bebo’s had rather few "up" weeks in the UK since June of 2007, even though Ireland was traditionally one of the markets in which it was most successful.

Less than a week ago, the former president of Bebo joined Facebook, and now, AOL’s admitted that the social network it bought for $850 million has been beaten by Mark Zuckerberg’s leviathan.  AOL intends to either sell or shut down Bebo in the near future.

A quarter of children in the UK aged 8-12 who use the Internet at home say they have a profile on Facebook, Bebo or MySpace, although the minimum age is 13, according to new research from communications regulator Ofcom.

Sometimes you just have to know when to call it quits, and a new report indicates that Bebo has decided now’s the time to cut its losses in Australia.  Bebo is supposed to end its operations in the country before the end of the year.

Bebo’s last head, Joanna Shields, left the post about 14 months ago, and the long delay in appointing a replacement raised a number of questions about what direction the social networking brand might take.  But now Bebo has a new head, and his name is Stephane Panier.

It looks like two significant social networks aren’t going to change hands anytime soon.  Executives representing News Corp and AOL have, with different degrees of forcefulness, expressed their intentions to retain possession of MySpace and Bebo, respectively. 

There is still a lot to learn about Bing of course. Microsoft’s new search engine hasn’t been live that long. After reading the back and forth of Matt Cutts and Bing, I started wondering how Bing and Google were treating each other’s results.

The AOL owned social networking site Bebo has announced it has launched in French, German, Italian, Spanish and Dutch as part of its continued international expansion.

Bebo says it has 22 million users globally with close to half of them in the UK. Previously Bebo was online available in English and Polish.

This article’s going to lead off with two admissions: yes, 2008 ended a while ago, and sure, the majority of WebProNews readers don’t live in the UK.  A list from Hitwise names the 10 most searched-for brands from that year and in that region, though, and since it’s quite new and rather interesting, we’re delving into it. 

Earlier this month, Bebo announced its Open Mobile global partnership program. Now this has extended to all major Canaidan operators.

Bebo is working with operators, handset manufacturers, and mobile software developers to help them promote, distribute, and monetize mobile social media. This is through Bebo’s new Open Mobile program.

I know I have been tough on AOL in the recent past. Unfortunately, they make themselves such an easy target that you almost feel dirty taking shots.

The AOL owned social networking site Bebo, has launched a "Social Inbox" that allows users to aggregate all of their social media into their profiles.

The Social Inbox aggregates feeds and updates from Twitter, Flickr, Delicious, YouTube, and AIM. Users will also be able to access Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and AOL Mail in one-click. The new mail feature allows users to see previews of new email messages.

Users of AOL and AIM will now be able to log directly into Bebo using their existing screen names.

ESPN has partnered with social networking site Bebo to bring short-form sports video highlights to the site for U.S. users.

Bebo was once referred to as "the best social network" based on a variety of factors, one of which being its protection of members’ privacy. It is that protection, however, that has a lot of its users peeved. They are apparently changing users’ profile names at will whether they like it or not.

Now might be a good time to brush up on your foil hat-making and bomb shelter-building skills.  On October 9th, a signal containing messages from 500 Bebo users will be beamed towards another planet with the goal of contacting intelligent life.

AOL’s Bebo seems to be growing a little stronger in terms of personnel; although it’s not stealing directly from a certain search giant, the social network’s newest hire acted as an exec at Dailymotion, and some time before that, Google.

Social networking site Bebo has partnered with Universal Music for an online drama set in the record labels London headquarters.

The series called "The Secret World of Sam King" will be made by Universal Music subsidiary Globe Productions, and independent production company Monkey Kingdom. The series revolves around an employee at Universal Music who secretly founds his own start-up label in the mailroom.

A family from Britain had their $8 million Spanish home vandalized by 400 teenagers after the owner’s 16-year-old daughter put invitations to a party on social networking sites Facebook and Bebo.

After invitations to the party were posted rumors began to circulate that Jodie Hudson’s parents did not care if their seven-bedroom home was destroyed because they were getting a divorce.

European media companies that don’t have an online presence, but are experienced in selling advertising should explore purchasing online groups, such as social networks, top Internet investor Saul Klein, of Europe’s Index Ventures firm said.

If newspapers want to gain new audiences, they will need to focus on the Internet, mobile and social media companies, Klein said.

If MySpace were to lose its top spot among social networks, it’d have a long way to fall. Though US visits to the powerhouse were down five percent since last year, MySpace still commanded nearly 74% of the social networking market, according to Hitwise. 

Facebook, long in second place but up 32%, pulled in nearly 15% of US social networkers, a share that towers over its nearest competitor’s.