Bebo lures top online sales staff away from arch rivals

thelondonpaper, where he was advertising manager, to also become an
agency sales manager.

Streisan Chapman has left her role as agency account manager at MSN UK
for a sales manager role, while Wendy Blacksin has joined as senior
account manager, having left her role as client services manager at
Ask.com.

Finally, Natalie Fanaken has departed News International, where she was
campaign manager, to take up the same post with Bebo.

All of the new staff will report to UK and Ireland sales chief Mark
Charkin, who joined the fledgling company last October.

Following Charkin's appointment and subsequent brief to hire a UK sales
team, Bebo severed ties with online ad sales house eType in February. It
has made several key appointments in recent months, including Joanna
Shields from Google as international president.Earlier this month Angel
Gambino, former vice-president commercial, strategy and digital media at
MTV, joined Bebo as vice-president of music, as the social network
continues to roll out its music service.

Bebo's recruitment drive comes at a time of increased competition for
social networks in the UK. Research firm Hitwise puts Bebo ahead of
MySpace in the UK with 19.1% of the market, compared to MySpace's
17.2%.

But conflicting research from Nielsen//NetRatings earlier this year put
MySpace ahead of Bebo when ranked by unique users. Both sites face an
increased challenge from Facebook, which is extremely popular in the
US.

Last year, Facebook made its membership policy universal, having
previously required users to sign up with a university e-mail address.
Hitwise places Facebook in fourth place in the UK, behind YouTube, with
a 6.6% share of the market.