bebo.com online address book

http://www.bebo.com < This has to be one of the best websites ever ... I spend everyday on it because it's so good and it's easy to use! If you haven't got bebo then I suggest you get it because it's just great.

What is it?

Bebo is a social network were people are able to socialize with their friends, family and also meet new friends. There are many other social networks on the Internet such as: Myspace, Face Box, FaceParty, Hi5, Tagged etc. But out of all these other networks I prefer bebo the most because it is more secure and keeps people on it safe. Bebo is aimed at all types of people and they can be aged from 12 to about 40 years old, however, many people have bebo who are younger and older than this age.

I have had bebo for about three years but have only really started using it for about two years, but since I've had bebo it has changed loads. Bebo has about over a million people who have joined, and there are profiles of celebrities (but you never know if they are the real ones or if they are fakers)! Bebo has been running for about five years or so and since it started it has come on along way.

There are many different features of bebo, this include friends, find a friend, photos, comments, flash boxes (otherwise known as music channels), polls, blogs, white board, the wall, ch-ch-changes, skins etc. Bebo lets you make your bebo page as unique as you like it and they don't tolerate bullying you are able to report abuse about someone and bebo will sort it out and give them a warning, and if it happens again they will delete your account. Bebo keeps it quite about who has said something about someone so the bullying doesn't go further than it already has.

Friends

Ok, probably the main feature about bebo because without the friends part there would be no point in bebo at all.

When I first signed up to bebo I only had 2 friends and now I have 209 friends. To be honest though I probably only know about 150 people who are on my bebo. You do get random people adding you just because they want more friends, think you look fit or they have accidentally done it through the feature "find a friend". The only disadvantage is they normally add you but then they don't talk to you ... So it really doesn't make sense to add someone you don't know and then not to talk to them! Lol! Bebo has allowed you though to choose whether you accept, decline or want to decide later to accept their friendship which is good because if you don't know them you can decline them.

There are three main ways you can add a friend. You can add friends just by browsing bebo and clicking on "add as friend" which is the option under the person's profile picture ... but you also have the option of blocking people from talking to you only disadvantage to this is if they are you direct friend on bebo they will get deleted as well as blocked but an advantage is if they add you again they remained blocked until you unblock them yourself. Another way of finding friends is to use the feature "find a friend" ... This was a new feature to bebo which basically just allows you to type in your msn, AOL, yahoo etc, email account and the password to that account and then you can click on the friends you want to add who already have bebo ... Underneath the friends that are in your email account you are able to add their friends ... this is known as "friends of friends". This is usually where you get loads of random people adding you because they've just clicked on the top box which select/deselects all the friends underneath ... it's a good feature because people who you chat to may not know you have bebo and your be able to have a look at their page unless it's private. Finally, the other way of finding friends on bebo is by searching. This feature allows you to type in the first name/surname/full name/address of the person you are trying to find, and it will tell you if they have bebo or not and you are able to add them through there.

Another new feature on the friends section is "friends story". This basically lets you write a maximum of 100 words of how you met the person on your friends. They have tick boxes which you have to tick at least one but you are able to tick all the boxes that apply. These options include friends, family, worked together, lived together, through a friend, only, we hooked up, we dated, childhood friends, social or club organisation, don't know them, don't know them - delete them, etc. Once you've done it you just save it and wait for your friend to "confirm the story" and once that's people can see how you know each other by clicking on your friends section. There's a good feature of the friend story is "don't know them - delete them" ... this tick box allows you to delete someone that you don't know or don't want on there and they don't find out that you've deleted them because bebo doesn't ask the other person to confirm the story.

Finally, another new feature on bebo is top 16 and top 100. Top 100 friends allows you to choose the 100 people that you want to see on your home page in the "ch-ch-changes section" and also who is on your mail list. Top 16 friends allows you to choose the top 16 people to appear on your main page of your bebo, you normal put your best friend or boyfriend or family member first and then put the most important people on your bebo in there ... however many people get funny about where they are in your top 16, even though it doesn't really matter where you are and just because you first doesn't mean your more important than the rest, that's why many people will sort their top 4 but won't do the whole top 16, to stop arguments happening.

Photos

This is where you are able to show people on bebo about you basically in pictures. You can pictures of yourself, family, friends, pets, special occasions etc. You are able to have as many photo albums as you want, however, you can only have 21 of the albums to be shown on your main page, but bebo has given you the option of choosing which top 21 photo albums you want. Bebo allows you to name the albums anything that you want. The only problems is you can only have 48 pictures in an album, so if your a big massive poser or just have loads of photos you have to have loads of albums with the same kind of pictures in. I would rather fit them all into one album, so I have about 3 albums full of pictures of me and I have about another 12 albums of random pictures of friends, family, the boyfriend and special occasions etc. If you click on "photo" at the top of your profile, it lists all the photo albums you have (just in case you have more than 21), when they were last updated, descriptions of the albums and how many pictures are in each album.

If you click on a certain album on someone's bebo, it will view all the pictures in that album (in small icons) and under the picture it will show you how many comments you have on a certain picture and the name of the picture, however if you click on the small icons it will make the pictures bigger and shows you underneath the comments that have been left. On top of the page just before the pictures and underneath the album name and description there are many options such as contact-sheet, send it, edit captions (which allows you to edit the name of the pictures), edit album (which allows you to edit the album as a whole by changing the name of the album, the description of the album, an option of either letting only your direct friends view the album or everyone and an option of letting people to copy your pictures into their own album, although this isn't really an effective feature because you are able to take the pictures by right clicking and putting it as save as. There is also an option to re-order the pictures in the album or to delete the whole photo album.

The send it option allows you to send the picture as one rather than the whole album, edit which allows you to edit the picture by changing the name of it, move which allows you to move the picture into another album and also lets you re-order the where the picture is placed, copy which is the same option as move however it only allows you to copy the picture into another album on your bebo page, use as album cover which allows you to set a picture as the album cover which will be displayed on your profile and finally the last option is to use the picture as the profile picture which allows you to set a picture as your main bebo picture.

There are different ways that you can upload your pictures onto your bebo. You can either go onto your photos which will show you all the albums that you have already created or if you are a new user to bebo and you don't have any albums yet, there will only be one option which is "create a new album". You are also able to create a new album if you want to place a picture in a completely different album to the one that you already have on your bebo.
If you click on that option you will have to name the album first and choose if you want it to be viewed by direct friends, if you want people to copy from it and also give a little description about the album, although this only has to be one word it doesn't have to be a lot of words. Bebo only allows you to upload 1 to 5 pictures at a time which takes a maximum of 3 minutes depending on your Internet speed. Some people usually have problems uploading with the multiple upload feature, so there is an option for them to upload one photo at a time although this takes a long time if you have loads of pictures to upload. If your picture is over 2 MB, bebo suggests that you resize your pictures to 640 X 480 but it doesn't matter what size as long as it's below 2 MB. Bebo doesn't allow people to upload pictures which has nudity if you happen to do this your profile will be deleted without notice, which is rather painful but fair at the same time. The only pictures that can be uploaded onto bebo is in the BITMAP, PNG, GIF or JPEG format.

Edit Profile

This is the feature which lets you edit the information which will be shown on the first part of your profile in the me,myself and I part. You can access this feature by looking just under your profile picture and it's the fourth option down. It lets you edit the basics such as first name, last name, age, where you live, etc. You are able to hide some of these features such as your age and where you live. You can also choose your gender (male or female), your relationship status which can be either single, in a relationship, engaged, married, seeing someone, its complicated or down for whatever. You can also choose the country you are from which literally has every country.

Scrolling down from those you can write about yourself, although you have only 1000 characters. This part is basically just to let people viewing the profiles know a bit more about you. There is also an area where you can write about your favourite music, films, sports, happiest when, scared off, etc. However you are able to delete these headings and put different headings on your bebo such as parts about close friends, family, other half's etc. There is a limit to how many characters you can use on this parts, and I think it is less than 1000 characters but I'm not quite sure how many characters there are.
There is also an option of making your profile public or private. Again if your under 21 Bebo suggests that you make it private for security, but most people have their bebos as public because more people can view your profile which gets your profile views up! There is also an option of making your flash box auto-play which means that the video that is on your bebo page while play automatically when you view your page or you can turn it off and let people press play to listen to them.

Bebo came together with skype to make bebo even better. This means you can IM or call your bebo mates who have joined skype for free. You can choose another nickname for your skype and also choose to either turn your skype on or off.

Finally, the last option is of your details which let you type all of your contact details which can only be visible to selected direct friends. The contact detail includes your home address, mobile number, home number, work address, work telephone number, instant messaging details such as msn, yahoo, AIM etc, alternate email and a comment box where you can add any other contact details. When you have finished updating your profile you have to click the "save" button which is the last button, next to it there is also a "cancel" button which will cancel everything and goes back to your profile with no changes.

Polls

I think it's obvious what polls do on bebo, but just in case you don't know what they do I'll let you know. Bebo lets you to create your own poll and it can be about anything that you want. On my bebo I have two polls but you can have as many polls as you want but bebo only lets you show three polls on your actual page.

You can have a poll about anything and on each poll you can put a heading, for example ... Which picture is the best? ... then you can either give an option of at least two answers and up to five answers. You can name the options as anything.

You are able to leave comments on the polls, however you have to be signed on to leave comments. When you go on the poll page it will show you how many days you've had the poll for, it will show how many people have voted and how many comments have been left on each poll. There is also an option to make another new poll or to delete the other poll.

Blogs

Basically a blog is where you can write anything you want, and I literally mean anything. You can write poems, song lyrics, jokes, characters picture (pictures drawn by computer characters, they can be of anything like a heart, tree, tweety etc), and questions for people to answer about yourself.
You can write as many blogs as you want to although only the last three ones that have been written are the ones that show up on your profile. I have one blog on my bebo at the moment which is 10 questions for people to answer about me.

If people want to see the rest of the blogs they will have to click on 'view all' to view all the blogs of that person. You can also comment on the blogs. But the person who writes the blog has an option of accepting comments or declining them, so don't worry if you can't find the comments button, however most people on bebo allow you to leave comments on the blogs. Another thing is if you write a comment the person who wrote the blog can delete the comment if they don't like it. A person can also comment their own blogs if they really want to.

If you look on the bottom right hand corner of each blog it will show you how old the blog is. You can renew your blog if you want to ... you can change the heading or change a few words on the blog and then click 'save' again and the days will renew etc. Blogs isn't a popular feature on bebo because there are new features on bebo that are better.

Comments

This is basically is where people can talk to each other on their bebos. 21 comments can be shown at one time, although you can read all the comments just by clicking on view all. When you look on the comment you can see the picture and the name of the person who sent you the comment. If you don't like a certain comment you can click on view all and there are 3 options you can either 'delete', 'report spam' and 'reply'. The reply option lets you reply back to the comment that has been left, the 'delete' button allows you to delete any comment that has been left on your bebo page and the 'report spam' is where you can report people from spamming on your bebo which is basically leave a comment saying hi check out my page ... give the URL and then copy it in the comment loads.

When looking on the bottom right hand corner of the comment there is the time which shows you how long the comment has been there for, this could be minutes, hours, days and weeks. I think this is a good feature because it will let you know exactly how long that person has contacted you in.

However, a new thing about bebo is that you are able to 'post a comment' to yourself ... this is a new feature and hasn't been around long but it's good because you can leave a comment on your bebo from yourself ... however seems a bit pointless writing a comment to yourself.

There is a character limit of 1000 on every comment sent. You can't send the same comment to people more than two times in a minute and you are not able to send another comment to the same person after you've just sent one (you have to wait for a few minutes, normally about 2 minutes), if you attempt to do this it will tell that you have only just post a comment to them and you can't post one after another (I don't know the exact words that they say). You are also able to write with HTML codes on your comments although I don't think many people do this.

Mail

The mail feature has been on bebo ever since it started. The mail feature has changed over the past year. Now you can add your own skin background, you can either create your own skin or you can copy one that has already been made. If you fancy a lot of skins, which is just the background of your mail, you can just add them to your 'favourites' and change them whenever you want because your favourites are listed down the side when you create a new message.

There was a new feature of sending messages to everyone at the same time and you didn't have to waste time by ticking a box as it would do it for you, , when you received this kind of mail from people on your contact list it will group them by the mails that you have received. However, this feature has been taken off onto another page because people kept spamming and sending nonsense chain mails, which was starting to annoy people.

When you want to send an e-mail to someone you can either go on their profile and click send message which is an option just below the profile picture or you can go on your own profile and click the 'mail' icon which will take you to your inbox on your bebo. Just above the page there is an option which says 'Compose new message' you just click on there and off you go. When you compost a message you can send your picture albums, videos, music, record a sound, and many other things.

White Board

This feature has been on Bebo since it started. The whiteboard allows you to draw onto someone else's or your own profile. Only the three latest white board drawings can be shown on your profile. When you draw you get the choice of a colourful background and drawing pen. You can either change the pen to draw thick or thing, depending on which one you want. However, you don't have to draw on a white board you can choose to just write text on the white board. Anyone can comment on a white board, though the persons who bebo is has is able to delete the comment if they want to.

Bands

This is a new feature on bebo which lets you create a band. Basically it's to do with music bands, however it can be about anything really like 'television shows', 'music', etc. One person has to create the band and then they invite some more administrators to help monitor the band if they want to they can just have one band moderator or have more than one. People who are fans can join the band by adding themselves as groupies. If your a groupie though you can't edit the band. When you look on the bands page you can see the fans and the band members of that band. You are able to leave comments like you would on a normal profile and also leave comments on the pictures, comments in the blogs, polls, white boards etc. You are able to cancel your membership with them by clicking leave the band. On the band profile you can see how many views they have, photos of them, blogs, comments, white boards etc. Bands don't have to be about music, they can be anything that anyone wants to create them about.

Widgets

The widget feature lets you add slide shows of pictures onto your profile. This feature is sponsored by many different things such as rockyou.com and photo bucket. You are able to add a glitter text, photo effects, voice comments (which allows people to leave a voice message from their phone onto your bebo), guest book, gossip, entertainment, horoscopes and lots more. Before you are able to put a widget onto your profile you have to go through some options, for example, if you want to make a slide show you have to click on create a slide show, and you will have to choose which web site your going to get it from, and then add the pictures that you want to put into the slide show, then you can choose a transaction, colour etc. Once you have chosen the pictures you can either copy the html code and put it onto your bebo yourself or click on the button which says add to my bebo (or something along those lines).

Other Half Of Me

Basically, the other half of you, allows you to choose one person who your friends with on bebo to be your other half on bebo. This can be friends, best mates, boyfriends, girlfriends, family members, husbands, wives, children, etc. You have to invite someone to be your other half and they have to approve you before they appear as your other half. You can also write a little bit about them underneath them this can be how long you've been together, how you know each other, something special, anything really. Your other half appears at the bottom of your about me section of your bebo and it shows their name and picture and people are able to get to their bebo by clicking on them. When you want to change your other half you have to go on to the edit option and choose dump them. When you have done this they will automatically be deleted from your other half title and you will be deleted of there, however this doesn't get rid of them as a friend on your bebo.

Skins

Basically skins is the background that appears on your bebo profile. You can either create your own one (which I find rather hard but some people find it easy) or you can just add a skin to your bebo that someone has already created. You are only able to use one skin at a time but you can change it anytime that you want to. You can save skins into your favourites, however bebo only allows a maximum of 30 skins to be added to your favourites. You have the option of deleting skin of your bebo or looking at similar skins, which takes you to another page fill of similar skins to the one you have just clicked on. If you want to change a skin you will have to choose the option underneath your profile picture and it will take you to your skin pages where you can look at all skins, favourites, recommended or ones that you have made yourself.

Play lists

Basically you are able to create a play list of your favourite songs for people on bebo to see. Other bebo members are capable of copying songs from your play list onto their own. You can download your own music straight to the play list, copy songs from someone else's or add them off your computer. Bebo also allows you to see how many people have the same song on their profile as you. I don't know how many play lists you are allowed but your limited on how many songs you can have on each play list.

Quizzes

This feature was on bebo when it started. It lets bebo members create their own quizzes about anything and then allows other bebo members to participate in them. The quizzes that can be created can be about anything but the most popular one is "How well do you know me", you can ask up to twenty questions on each quiz and you can have a minimum of five questions. Each question can have between two and five answers.

When you have created your quiz you can choose the answers that people select in order to pass the quiz. At the end of each quiz bebo members are shown the percentage total score of their results and other people who have taken the quiz results. You are also able to leave a comment on the quiz once you have completed it. You are able to create as many quizzes as you want, however only five of the quizzes will show up on your profile. It will also show you the total of people that have taken your quiz and you are also able to see the correct answers to the quiz once you have participated so you can see which ones you got wrong, if you got any wrong.

Change Modules

This is a fairly new module which allows you to move around your profile. The friends module and the comment module is the only ones that you are not able to move on your bebo. The changing module part is under your profile picture just click on it and you can change the layout of your bebo to make it different from the rest.

Share The Love

This was only meant to be used a few weeks before Valentines day 2007, but bebo decided to keep it afterwards because it became very popular. Share the love is basically a little red heart which you are able to give to anybody you like once a day, it is a little red heart which is placed on the comment section. At the top of your profile, bebo has made a bit which tells you how much love has been shared with you. Once you have given someone your love bebo has a message that says underneath the comment box love is rare you can only give it once a day.

Profile Views

Basically these feature allows you and other bebo members to see how many views your bebo profile has had since you have started your bebo account. The only problem with this is all it says is how many times people have viewed your page but it doesn't tell you who it was that was on your page.

Flash Box

When these feature first came out you could only download videos from youtube.com or selecting videos uploaded by bebo. However, you are now able to upload your own videos to bebo, you have to download video egg which sponsors bebo videos. You can upload videos in many formats, such as MPG, MPEG, MP 4 etc. Uploading a video may take from ten to thirty minutes it really depends on your Internet connection and how big your video is. You don't have to upload music videos, you can upload movie clips, sport clips, TV shows, funny clips, home made videos etc. You can upload as many videos as you want but only sixty of your videos will be shown in your favourites and only three will be shown on your profile. If you click on a certain video you will see how many people are using that video, comments that have been left on the video and you can choose to send a video or copy the video's URL.

Colleges And Schools

This allows bebo members to join their school or college. You can either join as a student or an alumni (which basically means you used to go their but don't no more), you have to type in your college email address if you are still a student and then verify it before you can become a member to your school or college. You can provide the year you started and the year you finished. When you join the college you can see all the other members that are from your school or college. On the page you will find a forum were you can type random things and other members can comment on them. There is also groups which basically is little clubs within the college and school which allows other members to join, however the person who created the group has to decide whether you can join or not. There is also a feature called the wall which basically allows you to draw anything on it (like the whiteboard). People are only able to draw one brick on the wall, and they will have to delete the previous one if they want to create a new brick. Only 30 of the recent bricks that have been added to the wall are shown on the actual page and people are able to comment on the wall if they want to. Members have to vote for the main profile picture of the school or college as well as the skin. The most voted skin or picture will be used.

Ch-Ch-Changes

Basically this is the main feature on your homepage, just after you have logged onto bebo before you even view your profile, which shows you your own changes and your friends changes, this could be your friends comments on your pictures, your friends new friends they've just added, you new friends you have just approved, new videos that has just been added by your friends or yourself, pictures that have been recently added by you or your friends etc.

Saying

This is feature on bebo lets you type exactly what you are doing that moment. You can also type what you are going to do the following day, what you are thinking, how you feel and what you wish for. The description can only be up to 140 characters and only one description can be shown on your profile. If you write a new one it will replace the one that's on your profile that moment.

When you visit other people's profile you can also add what they are doing, wishing, feeling etc to your own profile by easily clicking the "me too" button and it will automatically copy that person's saying on to your profile.

There is also a scoreboard of the popular "sayings" that are being used by other members on bebo. If you click on the update button it will take you to a page where you can see some of your mates recent "sayings" and your own recent one. You can either delete your recent one, copy your mates or type out a new one.

To Do List

This feature is found on your homepage, where your changes are just after you have signed onto bebo. The main things which are always on the "to-do list" are accepting friends request, confirming friends story, etc.

Search

This feature allows you to search either the Internet, people, music or bebo itself. The search engine is powered by Yahoo. You basically type in the name of something, the place of somewhere, etc and the search engine finds it for you on bebo and provides a link for bebo members to click on and then have a browse of that page that they have searched for.

My Account

These feature on bebo basically allows bebo members to change their account information with bebo. To access your account you have to go to your home page and just above the home page there are some options and the last option in the list is "my account". You can edit your username, your e-mail address, change your password, change your notifications which are sent to your e-mail, chose either to receive or not to receive bebo spotlight, monthly newsletter (latest news on bebo), comment notify, birthday reminders, mail notify (when you are sent a new mail message), friends story notify and changes update.

On you account you can also chose to review your profile comments and white boards (this means they won't be published on your profile unless you approve them), you can chose to view your friends changes on your home page, you can chose the minimum age of people who can contact you the age ranges from 13-60 year olds. You can also chose the maximum age of people who can message you or leave comments on your profile, and this also ranges from 13-60 year olds. Bebop members can also chose the sort of adverts you are interested in, and those will be shown on the advert areas of your profile. The advert option includes, jobs, mobile telecom's, music, sports, health fitness, entertainment, automotive etc. This is also where bebo members go to cancel their membership which basically deletes their profile and gets rid of their account information.

Overall, I think that bebo is amazing and I think that everybody should have a bebo account, it's easy to use and to set up, and it is also an easy way of keeping in contact with friends and family.

So visit ... www.bebo.com ... and this shows you most popular applications, new things on bebo, new music, sponsored profiles etc, this is also where you log into your bebo account or register to bebo.

If you fancy having a nose at my bebo then my URL is:

http://www.bebo.com/KayleeP26.

Loves
Xxxx