Bebo Launches Ambitious 'Social Game Experience'

Bebo's 'Social Game Experience' officially launches today, after a two-week beta period, and the social network says they've seen a 54% rise in game installs during that time.

The Bebo games page highlights a few noteworthy games, such as Pet Society from Playfish, in addition to a leader board that lists top-ranking players for a variety of games and an area where in-game updates appear. There's also a list of Most Addictive Games based on how many minutes they're played per user.

More features will be rolling out for the Bebo games hub, including the ability to challenge other players using Bebo Messenger, in the games hub page and inside the actual games. Players will also be able to see who is actively playing games, who is idle, etc.

This launch follows Facebook's announcement last week that they will soon be adding a game-specific hub to the popular social networking space. We've also seen similar game consolidation on hi5 and on MySpace in the past year, but those serve more as game aggregators than Bebo's more robust 'experience.'

We're curious to see if Facebook will settle for a simple game list or follow Bebo's model, offering a little something 'extra' for social game fanatics.

Note: Bebo and Games.com are both owned by AOL.

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