Yahoo signs advertising deal with Bebo

Yahoo bags itself a social networking website as it strives to build the biggest and most comprehensive online advertising network

by Helen Leggatt

In May this year, Yahoo began providing search on Bebo. This week, Yahoo has announced that it will also begin providing Bebo with display advertising. Finally, it appears Yahoo has managed to join the ranks of Google and Microsoft who sell ads for MySpace and Facebook respectively.

Yahoo says the agreement will provide its advertisers with "substantially improved" marketing opportunities in the traditionally hard-to-reach 13- 24-year-old age group. Yahoo Europe managing director, Toby Coppel, is reported as saying, "This is the next step of our ongoing strategy to build the largest and most effective online advertising network."

Bebo is the U.K.’s most popular social networking site, second only to Google in comScore’s World Metrix. It has a global membership of around 38 million of which around 10 million are in the U.K.

"Advertisers benefit from the partnership by combining Bebo's highly engaged audience with Yahoo!'s insights and advanced audience targeting services to reach consumers with more relevant marketing messages,” said a spokesman for Yahoo today, writesthe Telegraph.