Bebo is a social networking website launched in July 2005. It is currently owned by Criterion Capital Partners.

The website's name is an acronym for Blog Early, Blog Often. Users receive a personal profile page where they can post blogs, photographs, music, videos and questionnaires to which other users may answer. Additionally, users may add others as friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves.

Bebo was founded by Michael Birch and his wife Xochi Birch in January 2005 at their home in San Francisco. In April 2010, AOL announced it was planning to sell or shut down Bebo, with the sale being completed on June 17, 2010 to Criterion Capital Partners for an undisclosed sum. It has been reported that the sale raised less than $10 million.

Profiles

Bebo is similar to other social networking sites. Each profile must include two specific modules, a comment section where other users can leave a message, and a list of the user's friends. Users can select from many more modules to add. By default, when an account is created the profile is private, which limits access to friends specifically added. The user may select the "Public Profile" option so as the profile will still be visible to any other members of a school they may have joined. Profiles may be personalized by a design template that is the background of the user's profile, known as a skin.

Profiles may include quizzes which offer multiple choice, polls for their friends to vote in and comment on, photo albums which allows the user to upload an unlimited number of images with a maximum limit of 48 per album, blogs with a comments section, a list of bands of which the user is a fan, a list of groups that the user is a member of. A 'Video Box' may be added, either hot-linked from YouTube, uploaded directly to Bebo's servers via Motionbox or copied from a Bebo Media Content Provider's page.

Members can view the recent changes friends have made to their homepage from the 'Home' menu. These changes can include uploaded photos, updated flashboxes and newly added videos and friends. A friend's updates to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and other services can also be viewed, if those friends have linked those accounts to their Bebo profile. A map feature enables members to see who has being viewing their profile. However, the viewer must be logged in while viewing and have their profile set to public in the map section, in order for this to be possible.

Bebo Authors

On February 22, 2007, Bebo Authors, also known as Bebo Books, was launched. On this section of the site, authors can upload chapters of their books and also get them reviewed with a certain module. Currently there is no module to display books on a profile page like there is for Bands and Groups.

Bebo Groups

On July 10, 2007, the "Group" module was added to pages. This enabled people to view groups which were previously joined to a school and were also viewable only to school members. Bebo also gave an option to convert existing Authors or Bands to Groups. This conversion takes up to 24 hours as the profile must be manually changed by a member of Bebo staff. Group pages give users an option to join things they find interesting. These groups can often be educational as well as associated with Big Brother UK 2008.

Integration with instant messaging

Users can add their AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), Skype and Windows Live Messenger user names to their Bebo profile. For Skype and Windows Live Messenger Bebo offers links to quickly chat or add that user in that program. The Windows Live Messenger links show up only in Internet Explorer by default, as it uses the 'msnim' protocol. They can be used in another web browser such as Firefox or Opera by masking the user agent as Internet Explorer and using a tool called the WLM Protocol Handler to handle the msnim protocol. Using the AIM links to contact someone opens up a Web AIM client. Bebo also offers a co-branded AIM downloadable client. This addition to Bebo was created by 15 year old school boy Edward Wilton from Truro, Cornwall.

Bebo Open Media Platform

Announced on the November 13, 2007, Bebo Open Media Platform is a platform for companies to distribute content to the Bebo community. Content providers can bring their media player to Bebo, and monetize the advertising within it. Each content provider has a specialised page designed for video which showcases any Adobe Flash video content at the top of the profile. Many networks are signed up for the service, including CBS, Sky, Ustream.tv, BBC and Last.fm.

Open application platform

On November 1, 2007, Bebo announced that it would join OpenSocial, a set of common APIs for building social applications across the web. It announced plans for a developers platform and said it will make a further platform announcement. Bebo's Open Application Platform was launched in early December 2007 with just over fifty applications and is now host to hundreds.

Many members disliked the new applications created with the profile and asked Bebo to remove them. One of the main complaints was it made it easy for application developers to provide a way for members to send invites to all their friends on Bebo and many applications encouraged users to do so. A poll was held on the Bebo developers page and had a majority against apps.

Privacy and security

Bebo offers three privacy levels: public, private and fully private. Public profiles can be seen by any user, except that profiles of users younger than sixteen years old are seen only by logged in users. Private profiles are seen only by their friends and members of any school or college they have joined. Fully private profiles are ones that have not joined any school and so only their direct friends can view their profile. If a user chooses the 'Public' option, they can also set age restrictions on who can contact them. Age restrictions do not apply to direct friends. Bebo also allows a user to set their photos to private, so only friends can see them and can stop others from copying them too.

Inadvertent privacy breach by New Zealand ISP

On May 21, 2008 some users in New Zealand were temporarily given full access to other users' accounts. Various users logged in under their own account were switched over to the accounts of other users at random intervals, some people gaining access to over 20 different users' accounts. People were sometimes given access to addresses and phone numbers of other members, and some took advantage of the situation by uploading pornography onto other members' accounts. Bebo network engineers traced the error to a mis-configured proxy server in an Internet service provider (ISP) in New Zealand, which was later fixed. The ISP seemed to be interfering with its cache, thereby causing some of its customers to receive cached cookies and details from other users, likely because the ISP used dynamic IP addresses.

Current activity

On April 7, 2010, AOL announced that they were planning to sell the website. This was mainly due to the falling numbers of unique users, Bebo users were moving to the growing Facebook and to Twitter.

On June 16, 2010, it was reported that AOL had sold Bebo to hedge fund operators Criterion Capital Partners. The purchase was confirmed on June 17, 2010.

References

External links

Bebo.com

Bebo Mobile

Category:Social network services Category:Social media Category:Internet properties established in 2005

Name	Bebo Norman
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Jeffrey Stephen Norman
Born	May 29, 1973
Origin	Columbus, Georgia, U.S.
Genre	CCM
Url	http://bebonorman.com

Jeffrey Stephen "Bebo" Norman (born May 29, 1973) is a contemporary Christian musician from Columbus, Georgia, USA. His most successful album to date is Myself When I Am Real, which included hit songs "Great Light of the World" and "Falling Down". Other popular songs by Norman include "Disappear", "Nothing Without You", "I Will Lift My Eyes", and "Borrow Mine". He initially gained popularity when touring with another Christian band, Caedmon's Call. Norman's fans call themselves Simpletons.

Norman was originally involved in Young Life Ministries and gained a considerable fan base by performing at the summer camps there. This has drawn parallels to musician Matt Wertz and producer Ed Cash (Chris Tomlin, Amy Grant), both who gained fame through their involvement with Young Life. Upon releasing Big Blue Sky, his third album, Norman included a slip asking for donations to the organization. His song "Walk Down This Mountain" is about an experience at Young Life's Wilderness Ranch.

Norman released Between the Dreaming and the Coming True in September 2006. The tour in support of this album featured Christian music newcomers Aaron Shust and Brandon Heath. Norman is a graduate of Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina.

His song, "To Find My Way To You" was used on various promos for the CBS sitcom, The Class.

Norman is married to Roshare Finecey.

Bebo's single called "Britney" is written to Britney Spears. Recently (2007–2008) Bebo has appeared with several notable Christian artists on tour as they present Andrew Peterson's "Behold the Lamb" concerts during the Christmas season.

Bebo Norman's new album, "Ocean", released on September 28, 2010. It's a personal album, according to Norman, that covers the discovery of his true identity and the battle between fear and faith. The singer/songwriter told CBN.com that he hopes "Ocean" causes listeners to "look internally… at where they draw their own identity from. It’s worth wrestling with who we are, where we draw our value from, and where we draw our life from and .... refocusing on the source of whatever season of life we are in rather than focusing on the season itself."

Discography

The Fabric of Verse (1996)

Ten Thousand Days (1999)

Big Blue Sky (2001)

Myself When I Am Real (2002)

Try (2004)

Between the Dreaming and the Coming True (2006)

Great Light of the World: The Best of Bebo Norman (2007)

Christmas... From the Realms of Glory (2007)

Bebo Norman (2008)

Ocean (2010)

Awards

;GMA Dove Awards

1996:  – Special Event Album of the Year

2010: "The Only Hope" – Inspirational Recorded Song of the Year

References

External links

Bebo Norman - Official site

Bebo Norman's MySpace page

Category:Contemporary Christian music Category:American performers of Christian music Category:People from Columbus, Georgia Category:1973 births Category:Living people

Name	Rich Mullins
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Richard Wayne Mullins
Born	October 21, 1955
Died	September 19, 1997
Origin	Richmond, Indiana, U.S.
Instrument	Vocals, Piano, Guitar, Hammered dulcimer, Lap dulcimer, Irish tin whistle
Genre	Contemporary Christian
Occupation	Singer, Song writer
Years active	1981–1997
Label	Reunion Records
Associated acts	A Ragamuffin Band
Url	www.kidbrothers.net

Richard Wayne Mullins (October 21, 1955 – September 19, 1997) was an American Contemporary Christian Music singer and songwriter born in Richmond, Indiana. He had two sisters and two brothers.

Mullins was best known for his worship songs "Awesome God" and "Step by Step", both of which have been embraced as modern classics by many Christians. Some of his albums were also considered among Christian music's best, including Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth (1988), The World As Best As I Remember It, Volume One (1991) and A Liturgy, A Legacy, & A Ragamuffin Band (1993). His music has been covered by many artists, including Caedmon's Call, Five Iron Frenzy, Amy Grant, Carolyn Arends, Jars of Clay, Michael W. Smith, John Tesh, Chris Rice, Rebecca St. James, and Third Day.

Rich Mullins is also remembered for his devotion to the Christian faith. He was heavily influenced by St. Francis of Assisi (1181–1226). In 1997, he composed a musical called Canticle of the Plains, a retelling of the life of St. Francis set in the Old West.

Life

Richard Mullins was born to John Mullins, an Indiana tree farmer, and Neva Mullins, a Quaker. Mullins' family called him by his middle name, Wayne, which he went by until college where his friends called him Richard. Mullins grew up attending Arba Friends Meeting, a church in Lynn, Indiana. The Quaker testimonies of peace and social justice later inspired many of his lyrics. Mullins was baptized when he was in the 3rd grade. His great-grandmother had taught him to play hymns in four part harmony when he was very young; he began to study classical piano with a Quaker teacher while in elementary school.

An important part of Rich Mullin's musical talents in Richmond, Indiana was being the piano player, song writer and vocalist for the New Creations Choir which was started by Tim and Bonnie Cummings in the early 1970s. The choir had a bus, toured several states and even produced a record album. Today New Creations is a church and school for teens and Rich Mullins was a contributing factor in its beginning.

In 1974-78, Mullins attended Cincinnati Bible College. He worked in a parking garage to help pay for his schooling. From 1975 to 1978 he was the Music Director and Youth Director near Cincinnati at Erlanger United Methodist Church, Erlanger, Kentucky.

In the 1980s he moved to Nashville, Tennessee to begin his professional recording career. Mullins was engaged sometime between the late '70's and early '80's and had written the song Doubly Good To You (recorded by Amy Grant on her album Straight Ahead) for the wedding. However, his fiancée broke off the engagement, at which time Mullins wrote Damascus Road.

Years later Rich shared thoughts about his relationships and personal life in a radio interview with Rick Tarrant:

I would always be frustrated with all those relationships even when I was engaged. I had a ten year thing with this girl and I would often wonder why, even in those most intimate moments of our relationship, I would still feel really lonely. And it was just a few years ago that I finally realized that friendship is not a remedy for loneliness. Loneliness is a part of our experience and if we are looking for relief from loneliness in friendship, we are only going to frustrate the friendship. Friendship, camaraderie, intimacy, all those things, and loneliness live together in the same experience... I have no interest in anybody else and she is married to someone else so that's the way it goes and I don't mind that. Right now I cannot imagine that life could be happier married than it is single so I'm not in a panic about getting married. And I think, you know, maybe God wanted me to be celibate and the way that he accomplished that was to break my heart. So that's the way it goes.

In 1988, Mullins moved to Wichita, Kansas where, in 1991, he enrolled as a student at Friends University and lived with his best friend, David Strasser (a.k.a. Beaker). He graduated with a B.A. in Music Education on May 14, 1995. After graduation, he and Mitch McVicker moved to a Navajo reservation in Tse Bonito, New Mexico to teach music to children. They lived in a hogan at the reservation until his death.

The profits from his tours and the sale of each album went to his church, which divided it up, paid Mullins the average salary in the U.S. for that year, and gave the rest to charity. Mullins was also a major supporter of Compassion International and Compassion USA.

His faith can be understood by a quote he gave at a concert shortly before his death. He stated that:

Jesus said whatever you do to the least of these my brothers you’ve done it to me. And this is what I’ve come to think. That if I want to identify fully with Jesus Christ, who I claim to be my Savior and Lord, the best way that I can do that is to identify with the poor. This I know will go against the teachings of all the popular evangelical preachers. But they’re just wrong. They’re not bad, they’re just wrong. Christianity is not about building an absolutely secure little niche in the world where you can live with your perfect little wife and your perfect little children in a beautiful little house where you have no gays or minority groups anywhere near you. Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved and Jesus loved the poor and Jesus loved the broken....(concert recording cuts off at this moment, losing any further context for this particular quote)

Music career

Mullins had a distinctive talent both as a performer and a songwriter. His compositions showed distinction in two ways: unusual and sometimes striking instrumentation, and complex lyrics that usually employed elaborate metaphors.

Mullins did most of his composing and performing on piano and acoustic guitar, but he also had a prodigious talent for obscure instruments. He displayed arguably virtuoso skills on the hammered and lap dulcimers (in "Calling out Your Name" and "Creed") and the Irish tin whistle (in "Boy Like Me/Man Like You" and "The Color Green").

Mullins formed his first band in 1976-77 while attending Cincinnati Bible College. Neither album sold very well, These albums featured more of a stripped-back, acoustic feel than his earlier work, with nods to Irish music. "Step By Step", a song written by good friend Beaker and included on volume one, and incorporated into "Sometimes By Step" with additional lyrics by Mullins on volume two, became an instant hit on Christian Radio, and, like "Awesome God", it became a popular praise chorus.

In 1993, Mullins assembled a group of Nashville musicians (including Jimmy Abegg, Beaker, Billy Crockett, Phil Madeira, Rick Elias, and Aaron Smith) to form A Ragamuffin Band, whose name was inspired by the Christian book The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning. The band recorded A Liturgy, a Legacy, & a Ragamuffin Band, which was later named the #3 best Christian Album of All time by CCM Magazine. Liturgy was a concept album that drew its inspiration, in part, from the Catholic liturgy. The Ragamuffins also appeared on Mullin's 1995 record Brother's Keeper.

In 1997, Mullins teamed up with Beaker and Mitch McVicker to write a musical based on the life of St. Francis of Assisi, entitled The Canticle of the Plains.

Death and legacy

On September 19, 1997, Rich Mullins and his friend Mitch McVicker were traveling on I-39 north of Bloomington, Illinois, to a benefit concert at Tabor College in Hillsboro, Kansas, when his Jeep flipped over. They were not wearing seat belts and were thrown from the vehicle. When a passing semi-trailer truck swerved to avoid the Jeep, Mullins, who was too injured to move out of the way, was hit by the truck and died instantly. McVicker was badly injured but survived.

His funeral was open to the public and had a massive gathering. He is buried in the Harrison Township Cemetery in Hollansburg, Ohio, alongside his brother who died in infancy and his father.

Shortly before his death, Mullins had been working on his next project, which was to be a concept album based on the life of Jesus Christ and was to be called Ten Songs About Jesus. On September 10, 1997, nine days before his death, he made a rough micro cassette recording of the album's songs in an abandoned church. This tape was released as disc 1 of The Jesus Record, which featured new recordings of the songs on disc 2 by the Ragamuffin Band, with guest vocalists Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, Ashley Cleveland, and Phil Keaggy. "Heaven In His Eyes" was not a new song, but one that had been written over two decades earlier, a beloved favorite of Rich's.

Rich's interest in Saint Francis of Assisi led to an attraction to Roman Catholicism in his final years. There was no daily Protestant service on the Navajo reservation, so Rich frequently attended daily Mass. He never converted, and there is dispute over his intentions.

The year that he died, Rich himself declared,

In 1998, the tribute album was released, featuring favorite Mullins songs reinterpreted by his Christian music peers.

Mullins' family founded The Legacy Of A Kid Brother Of St. Frank to continue his mission to develop programs of art, drama and music camps for Native American youth and provide a traveling music school serving remote areas of the reservations. Today it is administered by Tammy Pruitt.

Discography

Behold the Man (1981)

Rich Mullins (1986)

Pictures in the Sky (1987)

Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth (1988)

Never Picture Perfect (1989)

The World as Best as I Remember It, Volume One (1991)

The World as Best as I Remember It, Volume Two (1992)

A Liturgy, a Legacy, & a Ragamuffin Band (1993)

Brother's Keeper (1995)

Canticle of the Plains (1997)

The Jesus Record (1998, posthumous)

Awards

References

Further reading

Manning, Brennan. The Ragamuffin Gospel: Embracing the Unconditional Love of God (Multnomah, July, 1990) (ISBN 0-88070-631-7)

Smith, James Bryan. Rich Mullins: His Life and Legacy: An Arrow Pointing To Heaven (Broadman and Holman, September, 2000) (ISBN 0-8054-2135-1)

Mullins, Rich, and Pearson, Ben. The World As I Remember It: Through the Eyes of a Ragamuffin (Multnomah, March, 2004) (ISBN 1-59052-368-7)

External links

Obituary at Catholic World News

Rich Mullins Killed in Crash

Rich Mullins Dies in Car accident

Rich Mullins at Find A Grave

Official Site (Kid Brothers of St Frank, Co.)

The Legacy Ministry

Calling Out Your Name: A Tribute to The Message and Music of Rich Mullins

Rich Mullins at MySpace

Category:1955 births Category:1997 deaths Category:American Christians Category:American male singers Category:Road accident deaths in Illinois Category:Appalachian dulcimer players Category:Hammered dulcimer players Category:American people of Irish descent Category:People from Richmond, Indiana Category:American performers of Christian music

Israel "Cachao" López (September 14, 1918 – March 22, 2008), often known just as "Cachao" ( ()) was a Cuban mambo musician, bassist and composer, who has helped bring mambo music to popularity in the United States in the early 1950s.

He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, won several Grammy Awards, and has been described as "the inventor of the mambo". He is considered a master of descarga (Latin jam sessions).

History

Cachao was born in 1918 in Havana, into a family of musicians, many of them bassists—around forty or more in his extended family.

As an 8-year-old bongo player, he joined a children's septet that included a future famous singer and bandleader, Roberto Faz. A year later, already on acoustic bass, he provided music for silent movies in his neighborhood theater, in the company of a pianist who would become a true superstar, the great cabaret performer Ignacio Villa, known as Bola de Nieve.

His parents made sure he was classically trained, first at home and then at a conservatory. In his early teens he was already playing contrabass with the Orquesta Filarmónica de La Habana, under the baton of guest conductors including Herbert von Karajan, Igor Stravinsky and Heitor Villa-Lobos. He played with the orchestra from 1930 to 1960.

He played the acoustic bass with his late brother, multi-instrumentalist Orestes López. The brothers composed literally thousands of songs together and were heavily influential on Cuban music from the 1930s to the 1950s. They introduced the nuevo ritmo ("new rhythm") in the late 1930s, which transformed the danzón by introducing African rhythms into Cuban music, which led to mambo.

A possibly more important move took place in 1957, when Cachao gathered a group of musicians in the early hours of the morning, energized from playing gigs at Havana's popular nightclubs, to jam in front of the mikes of a recording studio. The resulting descargas, known to music aficionados worldwide as Cuban jam sessions, revolutionized Afro-Cuban popular music. Under Cachao's direction, these masters improvised freely in the manner of jazz, but their vocabulary was Cuba's popular music. This was the model that would make live performances of Afro-Cuban based genres, from salsa to Latin jazz, so incredibly hot.

These descargas were released in 1957 by the Panart label under the title "Descargas: Cuban Jam Sessions In Miniature." They have been named by many critics as one the most essential contributions to the latin-jazz genre, including being cited by the book "1,000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die."

In the early 1960s, according to the documentary film La Epoca, expected in theaters in September 2008, Cachao was one of two of the most in-demand bassists in New York City (the other being Alfonso "El Panameño" Joseph, who was the bassist of legendary Cuban tres player Arsenio Rodríguez for eight years until Arsenio's death in December 1970). Joseph and López substituted for each other over a span of five years, performing at New York City clubs and venues such as the Palladium Ballroom, The Roseland, The Birdland, Havana San Juan, and Havana Madrid. Mentioned in the film, La Epoca, while Cachao was performing with Machito's orchestra in New York, Joseph was recording and performing with Cuban conga player Candido Camero. When Joseph left Candido's band to work with Charlie Rodriguez and Johnny Pacheco, it was Cachao who took his place in Candido's band. Cachao was recently scheduled to be interviewed by Executive Producer Josue Joseph of the film in New Haven, CT where Cachao and Palladium-era dancer Cuban Pete were scheduled to perform at Yale University. The film is about the evolution of Latin music and dance during the Palladium-era to present day, and Cachao was scheduled to discuss his contribution of the mambo rhythm, which he derived from Arsenio Rodríguez, documented in the film.

For a while, he had two distinct musical personae. In the New York salsa scene he was revered as a music god, with homage concerts dedicated to him, and records of his music produced by Cuban-music collector René López. In Miami, he was an ordinary working musician who would play quinceañeras and weddings, or back dance bands in the notorious Latin nightclubs of the Miami Vice era.

In the '90s, actor Andy García produced the recordings known as Master Sessions and big concerts honoring his legacy. Since then, Cachao became again a household word among Cubans and his reputation continued to grow.

His nephew, Orlando "Cachaíto" López became one of the mainstays of the famed Buena Vista Social Club group.

Cachao played with artists such as Celia Cruz, Bebo Valdes, Tito Puente, Willy Chirino, Paquito D'Rivera, and Willie Colón, and his music has been featured on movies such as The Birdcage and on the . Andy García produced two documentaries about this music, Cachao ... Como Su Ritmo No Hay Dos ("With A Rhythm Like No Other") (1993) and Cachao: Uno Más, which premiered in April 2008 at the San Francisco International Film Festival. The inspiration for Cachao: Uno Más, made by San Francisco State University's DOC Film Institute, came largely from a concert Cachao played at Bimbo's 365 Club in San Francisco, and the film's premiere was followed by a tribute concert with the John Santos Band at Yoshi's Jazz Club SF.

López died on the morning of March 22, 2008 in Coral Gables, Florida, at the age of 89. He died from complications resulting from kidney failure.

His recording of "La Guajira" was used in the film "The Birdcage" (1996).

Awards and recognition

López has won several Grammy Awards for both his own work and his contributions on albums by Latin music stars, including Gloria Estefan. In 1994, he won a Grammy for Master Sessions Volume 1. In 2003, he won a Latin Grammy for Best Traditional Tropical Latin Album together with Bebo and Patato Valdés for El Arte Del Sabor.

On June 11, 2006, López was honored by Union City, New Jersey with a star on the Walk of Fame at Union City's Celia Cruz Park.

López won a further Grammy in 2005, again for his own work, ¡Ahora Sí!.

Notes

References

"Cachao: Uno Más", a 2008 documentary produced by Andy García, featuring a live concert at Bimbo's 365 club in San Francisco

External links

CineSource Article on "Cachao: Uno Mas"

Bebo Valdés Trio with "Cachao" & "Patato" - Biographical information and performance from ABC in Australia

Cachaito Lopez biography

Interview from The Miami Herald

Cuba's Cachao is king of Tumbao

Cachao gets star on Walk of Fame

Category:1918 births Category:2008 deaths Category:Deaths from renal failure Category:Cuban immigrants to the United States Category:Cuban jazz (genre) double-bassists Category:Salsa double-bassists Category:Latin jazz double-bassists Category:Cuban jazz (genre) composers Category:Double-bassists Category:Mambo Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:People from Miami, Florida Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Latin Grammy Award winners