Bebo, the State's most popular social networking website, has said that Irish entrepreneur Barry Maloney has joined its board of directors.
Mr Maloney (46) earned an estimated €36 million when Esat Digifone, of which he was chief executive, was sold to British Telecom for €2 billion five years ago.
He has since become one of five partners in Benchmark, an international venture capital firm that has invested $15 million in Bebo.
"The first I heard of Bebo was when my three teenage daughters began using it in the evenings and I found myself in the position of no longer having to fight for the [ TV] remote," said Mr Maloney, who lives in south Co Dublin.
Benchmark controls venture capital of €3 billion and was also the original investor in eBay. "We've seldom seen anything take off as quickly as Bebo. Bebo has only been round for eight months and already it's growing by 10 per cent per week. It's the most popular site in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand and it's rapidly taking off in the US. We have rarely seen something this 'sticky'," he said.
Sticky may mean "addictive", he admitted. "Once people start to use it they keep using it. It's replaced text messaging for many Beboers." Bebo is an internet site that enables anyone to register and easily set up an attractive personal website, complete with instant messaging. Mr Maloney became interested after his daughters showed him how it worked.
Bebo was designed by British entrepreneur Michael Birch to be used by groups of friends who would otherwise meet face-to-face or communicate by telephone. Bebo has 24 million registered members worldwide and 500,000 in the State - which amounts to two-thirds of the Irish population aged 13-18.
Bebo has been banned in many secondary schools and universities because students spent too much time on it. There have also been concerns over the vulnerability of teen Beboers to pornographic material posted on the site, to bullying by other users and to advances by paedophiles masquerading as other teenagers.
"The first priority for us is in upgrading systems to improve monitoring and security. We would not have invested in Bebo if I didn't believe this issue wouldn't be addressed. In eBay, we've found the strongest way to monitor is to get users to be ruthless about what they see as irresponsible and to report it. Then it's our job to respond rapidly," Mr Maloney said.
An internet safety expert has been hired, but not yet announced, and Bebo is considering offering internet safety programmes to schools.
It is trying to find new ways to detect and prevent unwanted material on the site, which is user-generated. If sold tomorrow, Bebo would be worth far more than $15 million. MySpace - Bebo's main competition - was sold 15 months ago to News Corp for $280 million, but is now thought to have been a bargain, Mr Maloney said. Bebo will be worth substantially more if it holds on to its teenage users as they become consumers in their 20s and 30s.
