Techcrunch is reporting that Bebo has rejected a £300 ($552) million acquisition offer from BT (British Telecom). This is just a rumour, but Arrington seems pretty sure that it’s accurate.

I can see why Bebo would reject such an offer. It has become clear that we are at the start of a massive boom in social networking, and in many ways social networking is the perfect online business, in that they are by their nature very sticky, and they consist almost entirely of user generated content. This means that ad revenue can be made from millions of views of content which cost nothing for the company to create.

In some ways it is obvious to see why BT would want Bebo. Bebo is the dominant social networking site in the UK, and is profitable. BT could therefore use Bebo to build up its online brand, whilst making some money. If BT seriously want Bebo, though, it is clear they will have to pay much more than £300 million.