Gawker: valleywag, ringo

Bebo founder admits her fortune came from ripoffs

Owen Thomas — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 15:00:00 EDT

Imitation is the sincerest form of getting rich. MySpace got bought early, on the cheap; Facebook has yet to cash out. Michael and Xochi Birch's sale of Bebo, a social network more popular overseas than in the U.S., to AOL for $850 million has been the best social-network cashout to date. And how did they manage it? Shamelessly copying other sites, Xochi Birch admits to the BBC.

Ringo, their first social site, was an unabashed copy of Friendster. The husband-and-wife team sold that off to Monster, the job-listings site, for a pittance — but a pittance that provided the seed funding for Bebo, which Xochi openly says was inspired by MySpace. Copy early, copy often, sell out. (Photo by Auren Hoffman)

10 user interfaces of the future

Nicholas Carlson — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:40:00 EDT

Sure, your iPhone 3G's touchscreen is nice, but with Ringo, a "holographic shadow," you don't have to touch anything. According to this clip, a Ringo-enabled mobile device's buttons will project onto the ground in front of you. Skip to 1:15 in the clip embedded below and see handy this could be when it comes to walking directions from Google Maps. The only holdup? Ringo doesn't exist yet. Neither do the other 9 user interfaces Smashing Magazine features in its list of "10 Futuristic User Interfaces." We know that won't stop you from ogling them inappropriately.

Michael Birch's first social networking sellout a blowout

Owen Thomas — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:40:00 EDT

In 2003, social networking was not yet faddish. Michael Birch sold his self-admitted Friendster clone, Ringo, to online dating site Tickle for a pittance. He came to see that as a mistake, and went on to found Bebo, which he sold to AOL for a giggle-inducing $850 million. A cautionary tale for AOL: Tickle, now a unit of online jobs site Monster, laid off most of its employees in April, and informed its users by email over the weekend that Ringo was shutting down for good. (Photo by Michael Birch)