• Financial Times, Monday, May 19, 2008 11:15 AM

Yahoo looks set to lose out on yet another major advertising deal, as it emerged today that AOL, in finalizing its $850 million acquisition of Bebo, will most likely not renew Yahoo's pact with the UK social networking giant after once their display advertising deal is up in September 2009. Actually, it's an absolute certainty: AOL's Platform A will take over Bebo's advertising operations in Australia, Ireland and the UK once the Yahoo deal ends in September 2009, because why else would the Time Warner company have bought the social network in the first place?

Bebo's chief executive Joanna Shields confirmed the news earlier Monday when she announced that Bebo would ultimately be combined with AOL's Instant Messenger and other communications platforms into the new People Networks division, which Shields will be head of. The loss of Bebo's business would be yet another big blow to Yahoo, as the Bebo partnership is Yahoo's only significant advertising deal with a major social network. Google, meanwhile, has MySpace and Orkut, while Microsoft has Facebook.

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