AOL's Bebo social network to gain lifestreaming features

AOL's Bebo social-networking site will gain features for lifestreaming, an increasingly popular type of online service that lets people broadcast frequent, brief updates about their lives through photos, videos, blog items, comments and other content.

Lifestreaming posts are often compiled from a variety of other social networks and social media sites and formatted in a chronological, timeline-like interface.

In addition to adding lifestreaming to their Bebo profiles, Bebo members will be able to receive updates in this format from contacts in external sites like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter and Delicious, according to information provided by AOL to reporters over the weekend.

In addition to Bebo, AOL also plans to provide this Lifestream Platform via other of its online services, including the instant messaging networks AIM and ICQ, via mobile devices and to third-party Web publishers interested in adding this functionality to their sites.

The lifestreaming features in Bebo will also be available to companies, artists and celebrities who want to use lifestreaming to promote themselves or their brands on the site. According to AOL, Bebo has about 22 million monthly unique visitors

AOL also announced on Monday launched a new classifieds site called AOL Classifieds.

The new classifieds site, co-developed with Oodle, lets people search for products through every U.S. zip code and post ads for free, according to AOL.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.