According to an internal memo obtained by BoomTown, Joanna Shields, who came to AOL via its troubled acquisition of the Bebo social-networking site, will be returning to London to spend more time with her family and to “pursue entrepreneurial interests.”

(She is pictured here with former AOL CEO Randy Falco and former AOL President Ron Grant after Bebo was bought in 2008.)

Until recently, People Networks has been the third leg of the Time Warner (TWX) online site’s businesses, which also include advertising and content.

But under new CEO Tim Armstrong, who was one of the top sales execs at Google (GOOG), AOL is largely abandoning its business-unit approach for a more functional and centralized structure.

Armstrong is prepping AOL to be spun off, and has been trying to shape it into a more streamlined organization focused on core assets but run in a more top-down fashion.

Bebo has always been a thorn at AOL, since it was acquired for $850 million last March. It was a huge price for the social-networking site, which was much smaller than leaders Facebook and MySpace.

Ironically, Shields, who negotiated the deal, got a lot of internal flak for getting that much for Bebo. That doubtlessly got worse after both top AOL execs who bought it from her, Falco and Grant, got pushed out in favor of Armstrong.

Under Shields, People Networks–which also includes AOL’s AIM and ICQ instant messenger services–has been introducing a variety of social products and updated offerings.

It is now poised, as you can read in Shields’s memo below, to release a new version of AIM and ICQ.

Here’s Armstrong’s full memo to the AOL troops below, as well as Shields’s memo to her staff:

Team -

We’re now near the half-way mark of our 100 Day Plan, and we’re making good progress in putting together the details behind the strategic priorities I talked with you about two weeks ago. I’m looking forward to speaking to you more about this later this week at a company All-Hands on Friday.

In the meantime, I want to update you on some organizational news. Joanna Shields has decided to step down from her role as President of People Networks/EVP of AOL and return to London to reunite her family and explore her entrepreneurial interests. At her core, Joanna is a start-up executive, having taken numerous companies through the process of rapid growth and acquisition.

Following the company’s acquisition of Bebo last year, where Joanna served as chief executive, she moved to New York to help AOL unlock the value of our social assets and re-establish AOL as a leader and innovator in the area of social networking and communications–two areas this company pioneered. The result was numerous innovations in AIM and ICQ, the launch of Socialthing, along with continued upgrades to Bebo. I’m happy to say that Joanna will continue to serve as an advisor to the company working with our acquisitions and new ventures, so while we won’t be seeing her on a daily basis, she will remain an important member of the AOL family.

Joanna is a very strong and well-known entrepreneur and has been a very valuable member of our executive team. Please join me in thanking Joanna for her many contributions and wishing her safe travels as she moves her family back to London–TA

Dear Team,

I wanted to let you know that after much deliberation and with a heavy heart I have decided to move on from AOL. I am returning home to London to reunite with my family and pursue my entrepreneurial interests.

It has been a remarkable year and I feel incredibly lucky to have spent this time with you. I have been blessed to be part of many success stories in the past from RealNetworks and Google through to Bebo and my time with you at AOL will go down as one of my proudest.

People Networks was born a year ago to solve some of the toughest problems facing online consumers today. Despite (and perhaps because of) all the innovation we’ve seen in the last few years there are too many online services to monitor, too many profiles to manage and too many “social graphs” to maintain. The web is an amazing platform for content, community and communications, but these three rarely happen in one place, resulting in online conversations that are fragmented and disconnected. Our vision was to connect people with everyone and everything they care about and through a combination of great talent, hard work and brilliant assets we managed to create some amazing experiences to do just that.

We started with our industry-leading products AIM and ICQ and are now just about ready to re-invent instant messaging as the world knows it to become the default product for both private and public conversations and social and status updates. We leveraged the incredible passion and talent at Bebo, launching numerous innovations and expanding into 7 new countries while maintaining our leadership in user engagement and innovative monetization. And finally, we assembled a small, yet powerful group of entrepreneurs, to build a platform for socializing the web in record time, receiving rave reviews from publishers and partners working with the Socialthing team. I can’t wait for the world to get a glimpse of our new client this summer combined with the evolution of Socialthing as it finally creates a way for conversations and social interactions to happen anywhere on the web.

You should all feel proud of your role in our success.

I wanted to say thank you for everything I’ve learned from you this past year. I loved the fact that we challenged each other every day, from our offsites and product summits to our Thinktanks and day-to-day meetings. In the end we came up with phenomenal products that will make a lasting impact–and we are just on the verge of revealing these plans. I feel so privileged to have had the opportunity to think with all of you, to break down the barriers of the old ways, to innovate again and to re-invigorate this company. I believe in you and I am so very proud of you all. Don’t let the constant swirl of changes around you take you off course. Feel confident about the decisions we have made and the path we are on. Stay focused on delivering the products you believe in and I know you will win.

I leave you in capable hands with Tim and I know he will continue to support you. I remain, as always your friend.

Joanna

AOL–which recently has been putting its Socialthing lifestreaming service on a large number of AOL-run Web sites, moving it beyond its Bebo social network–will announce this morning that it will also be launched on another Time Warner (TWX) property.

According to a press release, Socialthing will also now be part of the Web sites of the Warner Bros. Television Group, including CWTV.com, TheWB.com, KidsWB.com, DCHeroZone.com, Essence.com and Momlogic.com.

But, more significantly, sources said, AOL’s People Networks has new versions of its AIM and ICQ messengering clients ready that it is preparing to launch soon with new, more robust and socialized features.

While it is not clear when that launch will take place, sources said it is aimed at keeping the popular communications tools–AIM has about 45 million active users–competitive with highly social tools offered by Twitter and Facebook.

Socialthing is a key part of that spreading of social elements wherever a user is, such as a Web site, allowing real-time activity to be communicated directly from the site.

AOL, in its press release, said: “Socialthing will make it easy to sign-on, allowing users to login to sites using their AOL or AIM credentials, without having to create a new account. In the future, users will also be able to log into Socialthing using their Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo! or OpenID credentials. Users can publish their online activities in a real-time feed that is distributed to their friends for the immediate sharing of experiences.

Here’s the official press release on the latest launch of Socialthing:

WARNER BROS. TELEVISION GROUP AND AOL COME TOGETHER ON SOCIALTHING

Warner Bros. Television Group to Implement Advanced Suite of Social Networking Services Across Digital Destinations Such as CWTV.com, TheWB.com, KidsWB.com, DCHeroZone.com, Essence.com and Momlogic.com

NEW YORK and BURBANK, Calif. (May 05, 2009)–AOL today announced that Warner Bros. Television Group (WBTVG) will launch Socialthing™, a new online platform for socializing websites across WBTVG’s digital destination businesses, such as CWTV.com , TheWB.com , KidsWB.com , DCHeroZone.com , Essence.com and Momlogic.com . Socialthing leverages the power of AIM’s social graph coupled with advanced community tools to enable social networking publishers to attract new users and keep them engaged on their site. The announcement was made today by Joanna Shields, President of AOL People Networks, and Craig Hunegs, Executive Vice President, Business Management, Warner Bros. Television Group.

“AOL is enabling leading media brands such as Warner Bros. Television Group to tap into the power of the social graph by combining the strength and global reach of our messaging networks with our powerful social networking tools,” said Shields. “With Socialthing, fans can converse and connect around hit TV shows such as ‘Gossip Girl’ and broadcast their passion and opinions to anyone across the Internet.”

“Warner Bros. is excited to be working with Joanna and her team,” added Hunegs. “Socialthing, combined with the stories and programs on our sites, will create a powerful and engaging combination of content, community and conversation for our users.”

The Socialthing pact will offer WBTVG and its digital entertainment destinations immediate access to AOL’s global messaging network of 57 million* monthly AIM and ICQ users. WBTVG will embed the Socialthing platform–free to users and requiring no installation or download–on its family of sites, creating a social experience that makes it easy for users to share content, connect with one another, and explore common passions in a number of ways:

Socialthing will make it easy to sign-on, allowing users to login to sites using their AOL or AIM credentials, without having to create a new account. In the future, users will also be able to log into Socialthing using their Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo! or OpenID credentials.

Users can publish their online activities in a real-time feed that is distributed to their friends for the immediate sharing of experiences. WBTVG will use this feed to create online identities for characters from its popular TV shows, such as Serena van der Woodsen or Blair Waldorf from “Gossip Girl,” enabling fans to follow not only their friends’ lives, but also their favorite characters’ lives online. WBTVG will also post breaking news into the feed, delivering the latest information instantly to fans and spurring further discussion.

Built-in communications tools will enable users to connect with buddies and other fans through AIM within the environment of the WBTVG site they have come to visit, allowing them to remain at their target destination without having to leave the site experience for another domain. Socialthing users can meet up with fans in chatrooms using the embedded AIM chat client, or speak directly to buddies via the built-in Instant Messenger. Users can connect and converse with all of their friends and other fans, and broadcast these activities to anyone on the web, if they choose, via the real-time feed.

Socialthing also makes it easy for users to share video, photos, articles and comments with their friend networks, starting with the AIM network and in the future adding other top networks including Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. Whether it’s a hot new shot from “Gossip Girl” at CWTV.com, a new episode of “Rockville CA” at TheWB.com, fashion and beauty advice from Essence.com, the “Conception Diaries” video series at Momlogic.com, or a new superhero game from KidsWB.com or DCHeroZone.com, Socialthing easily turns content into conversation and will allow users to deliver video and images to friends.

AOL and WBTVG will support the Socialthing launch with cross-promotion and anticipate launching the application on CWTV.com, on WBTVG’s digital entertainment destinations, and on AOL properties. The campaign will raise consumer visibility for the application and drive fans to the destinations for exclusive opportunities they can’t find anywhere else. More details will be forthcoming in the coming weeks.

While Socialthing delivers users a high degree of interactivity and visibility, users remain in full control of their publishing activity. They may choose to “always share activity,” “never share it” or “always be asked before sharing,” and can select which privacy option best suits their individual needs.

A site has been created at http://socialthing.com/forwebsites allowing publishers, interested in enabling Socialthing on their sites, to gain further information and insight into the platform.

Another Web company, another management restructuring!

Yahoo (YHOO) reorg fever struck AOL today too, as its advertising head, Greg Coleman (pictured here), moved the exec chairs around his domain at AOL’s Platform-A unit.

Coleman–who actually once was Yahoo’s sales head before taking the new gig at the Time Warner (TWX) online unit earlier this month–is replacing some execs and elevating others. Also there is some sleepy ad-serving stuff about the migration to its ADTECH system.

In related news earlier today, BoomTown reported that AOL International head Maneesh Dhir was leaving.

You must all know the drill by now, after endless reorg memos today, so here’s the entire skinny in the memo Coleman sent out (also, after the jump, is the 2009 goals memo sent today by AOL CEO Randy Falco that says, let’s be honest, next to nothing):

From: Coleman, Greg
Sent: Thu 2/26/2009 7:00 PM
To: Platform-A@platform-a.com
Subject: Unlocking Our Potential

Dear Platform-A colleagues,

When I met with you earlier this month, we talked about the big mission we’re embarking on and the vision I have for our future.

Over the past year, you’ve done great work integrating Platform-A and creating a powerful business from the ground up. Platform-A now provides marketers the most comprehensive and cost-efficient tools and technologies for the digital advertising space.

Just today, we took another big step forward with the migration of our ad inventory to ADTECH–an incredible challenge and a big win for us and our advertising partners. My thanks go out to the technologies and ADTECH teams who made this happen.

I’ve also been inspired by what I’ve heard from people throughout the organization, many of whom reached out to me during my first few weeks here to express their confidence in our ability to succeed.

Now, after a year of transition, key acquisitions and integration, we need to turn our attention to unlocking the full potential of this great business. And we need to move aggressively.

This will mean changes in how we’re organized, particularly in our ad sales functions. Over the next few weeks, I will be rolling out a multi-tiered plan that will address our infrastructure, make necessary role changes and bring in talent where needed. I want to tell you about some initial steps we’re taking today.

First, Don Kennedy will be stepping down as head of ad sales, a role I will assume on an interim basis. Don and I agreed that his many talents are best served in a different capacity, and I look forward to working with him in the coming weeks to define that role.

In addition, Mike Peralta will be leaving Platform-A. I want to thank Mike for his contributions to the business, and wish him well on his future endeavors. His team will report temporarily to Mark Ellis.

In addition to his day-to-day responsibilities, Mark will also be working closely with me as an advisor as we work through the changes ahead. Mark is a veteran in the Internet advertising space, and in the short time I’ve been here, I’ve quickly come to value Mark’s insights into the market and Platform-A. I’ve asked Don to lend his keen insights as an advisor during this process as well.

We will also be holding two days of meetings next Tuesday and Wednesday with regional ad sales executives to discuss the plan and get their input.

As we think about our growth and our future, please know that our mandate is clear. Even in this economy, we must ensure we have the best sales teams and the best tools across the country to serve our clients and grow our share of the market.

I came to Platform-A because I know this business has an incredibly bright future. And I know that working together, and working closely with our colleagues in MediaGlow and People Networks, we will realize that future.

Greg

AOL’s 2009 Goals

Dear AOL colleague,

This year marks the third of our three-year turnaround plan for AOL. Over the past two years, we’ve transformed the company and focused on three key growth businesses–MediaGlow, Platform-A and People Networks–positioning AOL to succeed over the long term.

Last year, we saw progress in each of these businesses. MediaGlow experienced sustained and healthy increases in users and engagement, proving we can grow our Web audience by creating experiences that appeal to people’s passions. Our People Networks unit embarked on a series of innovations and integrations that will set our social media experiences apart from the competition. On the advertising front, we integrated our acquisitions and made progress in other areas, although we continue to face challenges in premium display ad sales, which we are aggressively addressing.

If 2008 was about aligning our company against our core businesses, this year is about executing on our goals in what’s sure to continue to be a difficult market.

To succeed, we’ll need to continue operating as efficiently as possible, taking advantage of every available opportunity and remaining focused in a noisy marketplace. Our 2009 goals are designed to provide that focus. The goals may look familiar to you, which is a testament to the fact that our strategy over the past two years is the right one. As before, each of these goals will have specific metrics attached to them, which your business leaders and managers will be communicating in the near future.

Publishing. Over the past 18 months, we’ve reinvented our approach to programming, and as a result we’re successfully and efficiently reaching a younger and more valuable audience. This year, our new MediaGlow business unit will build on this momentum, launching 30 new edited niche sites and thousands of automatically programmed sites, creating original programming in our Los Angeles and New York studios and growing our audience worldwide, while continuing to enhance our ability to monetize our programming.

Advertising. Platform-A today offers advertisers easy access to the largest reach and the most sophisticated set of advertising tools available online, thanks to the integration last year of our seven advertising acquisitions. This year, we will build on Platform-A’s unmatched strengths to help marketers fully harness digital media to build brands and enhance online performance, worldwide.

Social Media. People Networks’ mission is to connect people with everyone and everything they care about. Last year, the group focused on integrating Bebo, AIM, ICQ, Goowy, Yedda, SocialThing!, Userplane and our other community properties, which combined reach more than 90 million worldwide. This year it will launch a series of innovations that leverage the strengths of this integration, starting this month with breakthrough updates to Bebo, and proceeding to a program to socialize the Web, updates to AIM and much more. In 2009, People Networks will create the most engaging and useful social media services available with the goal of making it simple for consumers to live their lives online.

Products & Technologies. In 2008, the Platforms team grew the Search business worldwide by more than 7% year over year and the MapQuest and Commerce & Marketplace teams showed strong profitability and feature innovation. At the same time, the global publishing and Relegence teams helped build out the systems that would become MediaGlow. The Products team focused its efforts on core products–Mail, Mobile, Desktop and Toolbars–that offered us the best opportunities for growth, while exiting dozens of underperforming ones. This year, the combined Platforms and Products teams will continue to innovate on these core products and services. The Technologies team will continue to improve our ability to launch and scale new sites and manage our data centers and network as efficiently as possible.

Access. Over the past two years, the Access team has done a remarkable job of managing this business, expanding margins, improving our ability to convert subscribers to free users and cutting costs, while maintaining the quality of the service. Access continues to be an important source of revenues and profit for the company, and this year, the team will continue to deliver in these areas.

Cost Management. Our efforts to effectively manage costs across the board have been a significant success, positioning AOL for the troubling economic times we currently face. In 2009, we will continue to look for ways to prudently manage our business and align costs with our ad-supported business. This isn’t just about cutting costs, it’s about smart resource allocation.

Living Our Values. Achieving our goals will mean nothing if we lose site of our company’s values. Living our values – integrity, collaboration, inclusiveness, outward focus, innovation – is a prerequisite to hitting our numbers. In 2009, we will continue to embody all of our company’s values and behaviors in everything we do.

You know as well as I do that this year will present us with new trials, new surprises and new opportunities. I’m confident that by working together, guided by these goals and our shared values, we’ll achieve much in 2009.

Thanks for everything you do every day to make AOL great.

Randy

Here is the letter AOL CEO Randy Falco (pictured here) has penned to the entire staff about layoffs of 10 percent of its workforce–or 700 people–and other cost cuts, which the online service is announcing today.

“We’re at a pivotal point in AOL’s transformation, and need to be even more strategically focused and operationally efficient as we weather the economic storm,” wrote Falco, in part, about the move.

As BoomTown reported earlier today, Time Warner (TWX) online unit AOL is making huge staff cuts, due to the weak economy and the ensuing deep falloff in advertising revenue, but also because of recent structural changes made to refocus the once-mighty service.

The layoffs will take place over the next several quarters, with most of the U.S. cuts to be completed by March. AOL has 7,000 employees world-wide, with most located domestically.

Here’s Falco’s letter:

Dear AOL colleagues,

I’m writing to tell you about some important decisions we’ve made about AOL’s business and why we’ve made them.

The deepening economic recession has affected every corner of the economy, including our own. Online marketers have tightened their ad buying across the board, reducing their spend by hundreds of millions of dollars.

As a result, we will be reviewing our entire organization to further align resources and expenses against the real revenue opportunities in this difficult market. Part of this will involve consolidating groups to gain efficiencies that will unfortunately lead to head-count reductions. We anticipate this will result in a net reduction of our workforce of up to 10% over the next several quarters–and we will attempt to finalize all domestic actions by the end of March. Reducing our workforce is never easy, particularly in the current climate, but our goal in doing this is to provide our core businesses the resources they need to thrive. Please know that, as always, we’ll be doing everything we can to help and support those affected, including offering severance packages and other services.

To further keep employment costs down, we will also forgo merit pay increases in 2009. This is a painful decision, but one that many companies have prudently taken to help minimize the number of layoffs they have to make.

To provide some perspective on these decisions, right now we’re two years into a three-year turnaround plan. Since day one, our strategy has focused on building and growing mutually dependent publishing, advertising and social media businesses to take advantage of the shifting media landscape. We’ve worked shoulder-to-shoulder to make considerable progress during this time.

We acquired best-in-class companies across the digital advertising space (AdTech, Third Screen Media, Lightningcast, buy.at, TACODA and Quigo, respectively) and integrated them with Advertising.com to build Platform-A, the largest, smartest display advertising platform in the world.

We grew our MediaGlow audience via an efficient content development model that in 2008 enabled us to launch more than 20 new sites that are generating significant page view (up 64% year over year in December), engagement (up 39% year over year) and unduplicated user (70+ million) numbers. This momentum will continue in 2009 with our goal of creating an additional 30+ editorially curated sites focused on consumer passion points.

We combined Bebo with our longtime community assets AIM and ICQ as well as newer acquisitions Goowy, Yedda and SocialThing, to build People Networks, gaining AOL a foothold in the critical social media space, with more announcements to come on the next phase of development in both the social media space and in the integration of social and publishing capabilities.

This progress continues to put AOL in a strong position to capitalize on our new business model when the recession ends.

In addition to focusing our investments, a successful turnaround plan also requires us to realign our cost structure against this three-pronged business model–making difficult decisions to cut costs in areas that aren’t critical to our growth. Splitting out the Access business improved the transparency of what’s working and what’s not, and allowed us to make better decisions about exiting businesses that weren’t performing while investing in growth areas. A successful turnaround plan also mandates we control costs, operate with healthy margins and position the company for sustainable growth. As you know, we’ve moved repeatedly to bring discretionary expenses in line to spare across-the-board job cuts.

But we’ve also had to make many hard decisions along the way. And this moment is no exception. We’re at a pivotal point in AOL’s transformation, and need to be even more strategically focused and operationally efficient as we weather the economic storm.

In addition to the head-count reductions and the 2009 merit pay decision, we are also making changes throughout the organization to improve efficiency and better align it to our three core businesses. This includes a review of our international operations and our global shared-services functions. In addition, we will continue throughout the year to carefully and thoroughly review all our products and services to make sure every one fully supports our strategy and has the potential for growth.

Finally, we are going to realize significant savings by continuing to consolidate our facilities–for example, moving from two buildings to one in Mountain View, from two floors to one in Los Angeles, and leasing unused space on our Dulles campus.

With these and other changes, we will take significant annual run-rate costs out of our business while, importantly, retaining the flexibility to invest in our growth strategy.

I know all this will raise questions, but I wanted to share as much as I could with you now. Senior management will provide more details as appropriate to their teams in the weeks ahead.

As difficult as things look right now, the economy eventually will turn around. Some companies will use this time prudently and make difficult decisions to come out of it in better shape–growing toward areas of opportunity, scaling back in others and maintaining a line on costs all around. Our only choice is to be one of these companies. With your continued hard work and dedication, we will position ourselves to emerge a stronger company ready to lead in a vibrant online market.

Randy

This morning, AOL will launch an updated look for its Bebo social-networking property, with a new “social inbox” profile for its users.

The inbox, which you can see below in the old and new versions, essentially gives its users a one-stop destination, with aggregated social feeds from across the Web, multiple email accounts and media recommendations.

But, according to sources with knowledge of AOL’s plans, the online service is preparing a more radical series of announcements after the new year, well beyond its release today.

Interestingly, the changes to its social-networking and communications properties yet to be announced have been among the things that have impressed Yahoo (YHOO), whose execs have been briefed on the changes, as part of the never-ending talks with the Time Warner (TWX) about buying its AOL asset.

That includes offering AOL’s various social-networking tools–such as chat rooms, news feeds and instant messaging–to be easily embedded by any Web site. The service will be called “Site Social,” with plans to use AOL’s advertising platform to help monetize the offering.

In addition, the renovation of the Bebo profile pages will continue, with more innovative features, including the introduction of an interactive “timeline” that shows a person’s online “lifestream” in a scrolling fashion.

BoomTown has seen the timeline–in which events of any kind can be depicted, from your book club schedule to a trip to Hawaii.

While it looks like eye candy at first, it is also pretty useful–especially a mobile version. And it is definitely the most visually striking version of a news feed that is offered by competitors.

“It is part of a left brain/right brain strategy to improve our services, distinguishing them from the pack,” said one person familiar with the upcoming changes at AOL. “But we also have all these tools and want to reach out to publishers who need to socialize their sites and find it hard to do so.”

The move today to update Bebo, though, is strikingly similar to redesigns that have been recently rolled out by large Web players like Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo.

All are attempts to offer a competing product to popular social-networking sites like Facebook and News Corp. (NWS) unit MySpace, where users have flocked. (News Corp. is the owner of this Web site.)

Those two companies have also been making moves of late to allow consumers to aggregate their disparate piles of online information in through connective offerings that allow them to pool all kinds of Web content and communications in one place.

AOL is hoping its efforts will focus users more on Bebo, which it bought for $850 million in March. Bebo is one of the larger social networks, although it is not popular in the U.S. and lags behind the leaders like Facebook.

AOL execs are hoping to change that by changing the game, focusing on Bebo’s strong media offerings and making it the centerpiece of its social-networking and communications unit, run by former Bebo head Joanna Shields.

AOL’s People Networks unit, which includes Bebo, AIM and ICQ, has an overall audience of 92 million unduplicated users worldwide, said AOL, referencing a recent comScore (SCOR) survey.

“The current fragmented social networking environment makes keeping up-to-date with others increasingly difficult,” said Shields, who is now president of People Networks, in a press release statement. “By opening up our network to the most popular sites and allowing our users to pull in the best of the Internet, we are creating an environment where everyone can easily and effectively manage their online lives, no matter where the individual pieces reside.”

The launch companies for the new inbox include: Twitter, Flickr, Del.icio.us, YouTube, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, as well as AOL-owned AIM and AOL Mail. In addition, all AOL and AIM users now can now log into Bebo using their credentials and create a profile.

Here’s more specific info, from the AOL press release:

Today’s enhancements to Bebo.com, the first in a series of scheduled releases for early 2009, include:

• Media Favorites: A new recommendations engine built on the foundations of Bebo’s Open Media Platform delivers the most relevant online entertainment (including video, music, groups and games) into one place. Media Favorites are based on users’ stated preferences and aggregated data such as: what their friends are watching and listening to and what people like them like, subject to appropriate privacy settings. This feed pulls in current Bebo content and group subscriptions, making it easy to get a quick snapshot of all personalized content. Bebo already boasts one of the most extensive online media offerings available, with programming from over 500 media companies including MTV, ESPN, CBS and the BBC.

And here are the before and after Bebo profiles (click on the images to make them larger and keep clicking to make them clearer):

OLD BEBO

NEW BEBO