Apple links iTunes to social networking through Bebo

[AppleInsider]

Apple Inc. has made one of its first overt attempts to tap into web youth culture, establishing links between its iTunes Store and European social networking site Bebo.

The Financial Times reports that a deal with Bebo.com will let the site's nearly 9 million users in Ireland and the UK jump directly to Apple's online music store through embedded links in the profiles of musicians, providing a shortcut that displays their albums and songs on the iTunes Store.

Apple's deal will potentially give it access to as many as 500,000 musicians who maintain profiles on the page and will also serve as a vehicle for pushing new artists for both companies. A free Bebo single of the week will operate separately from the official iTunes release to encourage visiting Bebo itself and buying the music. Mercury artist Amy Macdonald will be the first to have a free Bebo single, according to the report.

The iPod maker is said to consider the move experimental and a means of encouraging legal downloads by putting them a click away on the artist page. If it proves successful, the Bebo project may expand to the full 33 million international Bebo users.

An incidental benefit of the move, however, is exposure to a younger market of web visitors that it has known in the past. Almost a third of youth between 16 and 24 years old visit at least one social networking site occasionally and will likely see the iTunes links if they visit to explore music. Most of that same audience is also especially active on peer-to-peer networks trading illegal copies, giving Apple an extra incentive to target their social sites.

The decision is the first of its kind for Apple, which has largely remained absent from social networking sites. Although the California-based firm has already established a system for linking directly to artists, albums, or songs from websites, the web referral method has so far been used for general ad campaigns independent of any one website.

Although easily recognized on the Internet, Apple has been relatively slow to embrace social networking and other Web 2.0 elements. Facebook recently put in place a development kit that lets Amazon and other online retailers embed store-related links in member profiles, and European carriers Orange as well as Vodafone have both outpaced Apple in striking deals for mobile access to Bebo.

Apple will begin to learn how well its name carries forward to a younger Internet community on Wednesday, when Bebo will reportedly start hosting the British and Irish iTunes Store links.

[neiltc13]

Bebo is a US website.

[wilkie]

has apple not heard of virb?! it may not have the member base as yet (im not too sure) but its a helluva lot better in terms of design and ease of use than ugly bebo :S

[Bageljoey]

Originally Posted by wilkie

has apple not heard of virb?! it may not have the member base as yet (im not too sure) but its a helluva lot better in terms of design and ease of use than ugly bebo :S

Must be too old. Never heard of either of these.

I guess its smart, though. Apple already has me as a customer, they need to get them crazy kids...

[sparkleytone]

First overt attempts?

Apple has been pimping iTunes on Facebook for a good long while now. They've given out tons of free songs, have their own group, etc etc. They were one of the first big corporate presences on Facebook.

[josa92]

this should be a good move for apple, buying-wise.
But it might build resistance from those kids who won't have anything to do with corporate-ness. Altho they wouldn't be customers anyway.....

New font on the main page, anyone? It looks different.

[Lupa]

Originally Posted by sparkleytone

First overt attempts?

Apple has been pimping iTunes on Facebook for a good long while now. They've given out tons of free songs, have their own group, etc etc. They were one of the first big corporate presences on Facebook.

Ditto, this is nothing new.

[Feynman]

Originally Posted by sparkleytone

First overt attempts?

Apple has been pimping iTunes on Facebook for a good long while now. They've given out tons of free songs, have their own group, etc etc. They were one of the first big corporate presences on Facebook.

Yeah they also have different profiles for each of their color iPod nano's on myspace.com

Hardly their first attempt.

[maimezvous]

Originally Posted by neiltc13

Bebo is a US website.

It's not popular at all over here though. The only reason I used it was to keep in touch with a few of my british friends, but even they use facebook now.

[Dave111]

Bebo is HUGE here in Ireland. At one point it was getting more hits than google. It seems that Bebo is the only thing that people between 12 and 18 use on a computer

I think it's a great idea personally

Oh and by the way bebo has been redesigned in the past few weeks. Looks a little more slick... Still has nothing on Virb though.

[nufase]

virb does use a nice shot of an apple display in the right column of their main page though, under the heading "wanna pimp out your profile?"

It dosen't even look like they made an attempt to remove the apple logo.

[rawhead]

Yeah, iTunes has had integration with mixi, the biggest by far SNS in Japan for over a year now, too. Really, what makes this news, I do not know. Maybe AppleInsider staff isn't youth enough to know these things ;-p

[Slewis]

Null.