In the last couple of days one of the biggest stories has been the purchase of Social Network Giant, Bebo by AOL. With approximately 5% search market share and being one of the most visited sites on the planet, can Bebo really help make a difference to a search property which is been fairly average for the last few years? Here’s some coverage of the Bebo purchase around the Internet:

• Bebo on Board: AOL Pays Big
• Bebo on Board: AOL Pays Big
• AOL inks deal to buy social-networking website Bebo
• AOL pays $850 million in cash for Bebo
• Bebo acquisition could boost AOL
• Breaking down Bebo’s purchase price
• AOL Adopts a Bebo

So what does 850 million dollars get you these days, below are some Bebo stats from Hitwise to help quantify AOL’s purchase:

• Bebo ranked 4th among a custom category of 55 social networks, after MySpace, Facebook and MyYearbook for Feb-08 receiving 1.15% of all U.S. visits to the category.
• MySpace’s share of U.S. Internet visits was 67 times larger compared with Bebo and Facebook’s share of US Internet visits (among all categories) was 11x that of Bebo in Feb-08.
• Bebo’s share of U.S. Internet visits is down year on year. Share of U.S. Internet visits (among All Categories) to Bebo were down 23% last week and down 22% in Feb-08.
• The average time spent on Bebo in Feb-08, was 30 minutes and 26 seconds, more than both MySpace (30m7s) and Facebook (21m0s). The average time spent on the site is flat year-over-year, MySpace is slightly down and Facebook is up 69%.
• 22.15% of U.S visits to Bebo last week came from MySpace last week.
• Of ‘www.bebo.com’s total upstream traffic in Feb-08, 17.37% consisted of new visitors and 82.63% consisted of returning visitors.
• In the UK, Bebo is the most searched-for brand (ahead of eBay and Facebook) and has enormous brand equity.