The Next Web

Bemba.com: a new sharing add-on for social networks

Written on March 5, 2008 – 3:58 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

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With the open beta launch of Bemba today, the web has another service for your sharing needs. This one is all about keeping things simple and wants to work on top of social networks. When I was at Le Web 3 in Paris, I met the founders Aaron Peters and Arne Dibbits. They told me that they were aiming to develop a service that is easy to use for the not so experienced Internet users between 18 and 30 years old. How will they achieve this?

Peters: “People like to share websites and videos with their friends, but it shouldn’t be too much of a hassle. And while funsurfing the web is gaining popularity, people find it difficult discover entertaining new content. Bemba provides the easiest way to share web content with friends, on any social network or (micro)blog. This way we make the web more fun.”

Peters and Dibbits’ first day at the Bemba office

After users have installed the Bemba plugin - there’s no bookmarklet - , users can share anything entertaining they find on social networks with two clicks. Well, that’s the plan. So far it’s only interesting for people who use Hyves - the largest Dutch social network with 5,5 million users - and Twitter. Bemba has developed a fancy gadget for Hyves and sends shared pages to Twitter with an URL shortener. Integration with MySpace, Facebook, Netlog and other major social networks is on its way. And it should be, if they want to leave a good first impression these first months.

As more smart European start-ups do, Bemba will translate its service in Spanish, French, Portuguese, German and Dutch before the end of May 2008. But why not in Turkish? There’s a huge market in Turkey, since the number of young people exceeds even the most populated countries in Europe. 2.1 million of these youngsters is using Facebook, another 2.5 million uses Netlog.

I’ve tested the service and must admit, it IS simple. I hope for the guys of Bemba that users like their sharing apps, so that it will become viral. Only then they might manage to convince people to not click on ‘Share with Facebook’ but on ‘Share with Bemba’.

bemba, Europe, facebook, hyves, sharing, turkey

About the author: Ernst-Jan is a blogger and journalist, who previously worked in New York to cover news at the United Nations. Next to writing, he's also a singer in the band Christina Five.

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