Bebo and DanceJam offer network for all things dance

Bebo, the leading global Social Media Network, today announced a partnership with DanceJam, “the largest dance floor on the planet” and social network for all things dance, through Bebo’s Open Application Platform.

DanceJam’s first social networking application has been built exclusively for Bebo’s platform, and now DanceJam fans around the world can log on to Bebo (http://www.apps.bebo.com/dancejam) to watch and rate dance videos, enter online auditions and contests, and interact with fellow dance fans.

The Bebo community can now enter to win passes to exclusive DanceJam-sponsored “Monsters of HipHop” events in 12 cities across the United States. The first event took place in Boston, and will continue through Los Angeles, New York, Denver, and international destinations Mexico, Japan & Europe. At each event, Bebo and DanceJam will showcase exclusive dance footage, competitions and contests.

Bebo users can also enter DanceJam contests at http://www.apps.bebo.com/dancejam to win a grand prize of dance lessons with DanceJam founder and international rap superstar MC Hammer and a famous choreographer, and participate in monthly contests to win prizes.

“We’re very excited to bring DanceJam’s user-generated video and dance contests to Bebo’s global community,” says Hammer. “It’s a natural fit; Bebo is a haven for self-expression and DanceJam has become the largest dance floor on the planet. Both communities have embraced the power of social networking for connecting people around the world to the things they love – dancing, in this case.”

Through DanceJam’s application on Bebo, users can upload videos of themselves and others dancing, watch and rate other dancers, learn new dance moves, and adopt DanceJam profile skins. Users can also challenge other Bebo users to head-to-head dance battles that are judged by the Bebo community and caricatures of popular reality television judges, i.e. “Snarky Brit.”

“We are excited to have DanceJam debut its first social network application through Bebo’s Open Application Platform,” said Ziv Navoth, Bebo’s SVP Marketing & Business Development. “When we opened the platform, we envisioned that Bebo would bring together the best in entertainment, sports, personal expression, and now dance is a natural extension. Bebo engages users worldwide for 27 minutes per day, on average, so it’s a great opportunity to bring DanceJam’s innovative vision for dance to our active global community.”

In December 2007, Bebo launched its Open Application Platform, opening its API to third party developers to integrate their applications with the Bebo site. Since launch, Bebo users have installed well over 100,000 applications from a variety of partners who have created applications from music and movies to gameplay and photo sharing for the site’s 45 million users worldwide.

About Bebo: Bebo is the world's leading global social media network. Building on the notion of traditional social networking websites, Bebo combines community, self-expression and entertainment to enable its users to consume, create, discover and share professional and user-generated content through the Bebo website. Bebo has over 11.6 million unique users in the UK and a total membership of more than 45 million worldwide. Bebo's worldwide users spend an average of 27 minutes a day on the site.

Bebo forms part of AOL's newly created People Networks business unit which combines Bebo, AIM, ICQ, Goowy Media and Yedda and reaches about 80 million unduplicated users worldwide.

Bebo is a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL LLC, a majority-owned subsidiary of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX).

About DanceJam:
DanceJam was founded by M.C. Hammer along with visionary Internet entrepreneurs Geoffrey Arone and Anthony Young from Flock.com. The current popularity of dance globally is evident by the success of dance television shows such as 'Dancing with the Stars,' 'So You Think You Can Dance, ‘America's Best Dance Crew' and online videos such as 'The Evolution of Dance'. DanceJam's founding trio saw an opportunity to create a niche video site focused entirely on dance and dance culture. From this, DanceJam was born, created to cater exclusively to the growing community of dancers and their fans.