bebo

Social networking website bebo.com is one of the largest and most successful drivers in the evolution of "Web 2.0" services, the second generation of Internet-based services that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users.Birch has been wedded to the idea of social networking since 2003, when he recognized that it could achieve what portals could not. Birch launched bebo.com in July 2005, and since then it has grown to become the largest social network in the UK, Ireland and New Zealand. Every day Bebo's users upload more than 1.2 million photos, which are stored in five formats and managed by an Oracle database. The website currently has over 30 million registered users and turns over five billion page views a month, a figure which is growing at 20 per cent per month. Birch believes that this growth rate will position Bebo to be a market leader in the US within a year. Already, Bebo has been listed as the most searched-for site on Google (at least among those suitable for polite society), ahead of the current US market leader in social networks. Today, Bebo employs 50 people.