• The Financial Times, Thursday, April 1, 2010 2:45 PM

Two years after dropping $850 million on Bebo, corporate tax experts recently said AOL would be better off just scrapping the struggling social network. Adding insult to injury, Facebook has now hired former Bebo chief exec Joanna Shields -- who spearheaded the sale to AOL before jumping ship last summer. Shields will now serve as Facebook's vice-president of sales and business development for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Shield spent the last six months at Shine Group, which owns the production companies behind television shows such as Spooks and Ugly Betty. ShineVu, the unit Shields established, is the company's first attempt to blend traditional TV content with social media -- as she did at Bebo with web soaps such as "KateModern."

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