The once popular social network Bebo has now reincarnated in form of a messaging app for Android and iOS.
The Bebo team, who originally launched the social network in 2005, had sold it to AOL for $850million (£540million) in 2008. However, last year original co-founders bought it back from AOL and now finally have re-launched it as a social messaging app under the same name.
The messaging app seems to be a bit different from rival WhatsApp and Snapchat as it uses customizable cartoon avatars instead of photographs. This means the new app allows users to generate their own cartoon avatars, rather than simply upload a real-life profile image, which will be their ‘face’ on the network.
Users can heavily customize their avatar’s hairstyle, skin tones, clothes, accessories and even expressions by employing certain hashtags.
Other hashtags can vary in functionality from ‘slapping’ a friend to playing a game or sending a song. Mini-games include Tictactoe and a Flappy Bird clone dubbed FlappyHead where users play with their head instead of a bird.
“Everybody else is trying to be very “serious” about social networking, which feels a bit strange to us,” the company said in a post accompanying the launch.
“The new Bebo is for people who don’t take life too seriously.”
The new Bebo app is currently available as a free download from Google Play and the App Store, with a web-based version due to launch soon. In addition, photographs uploaded to the original version of Bebo will be made available again on the new service starting January 31, 2015.
