SIMON CREER

BEBO has been judged the best social networking website, narrowly beating off Facebook, in a consumer report released yesterday.

Computing Which? magazine praised the website, which is aimed at 13-to-24-year-olds, for encouraging "responsible networking".

It puts Yahoo! Groups at the bottom of its survey of 10 of the most popular sites used to make new friends or catch up with old acquaintances.

The largest social networking sites - Facebook, which ranks number one, Bebo and MySpace, occupy three of the top 10 spots in the most visited websites in the UK, according to internet monitor Hitwise.

The sites were judged on ease of use, performance and the additional functions they offered. The survey looked at the big players and some more niche market providers including Flickr, a photo-sharing site, and Saga Zone, a networking site aimed at the over 50s.

The results were close. Bebo topped the poll with an overall score of 79% and Facebook followed with 74%. Yahoo! Groups was described as less sophisticated than some of its rivals and came bottom of the poll with 59%. The magazine said: "Yahoo! Groups lacks many of the features people often associate with social networking groups."

Bebo's users who can restrict the information available to others and also block unwanted visitors to their pages. The site offers advice on security risks and how to go about avoiding them.

Dr Rachel O'Connell, chief safety officer at Bebo said: "Safety and security remain of paramount importance to Bebo."

She also said that they have launched the Be Well resource area for users to gain support on issues relating to mental health and social care.

She said: "The Be Well approach is a natural progression to best support a community that spends more time online than ever before."

Joanna Shields, president of Bebo, said: "Bebo is a social media network where culture and content come together and people use media and entertainment as a means of self-expression."

The report criticised Facebook for making its security settings too hard to locate. It said: "Our expert felt it was confusing to find out, and change, who can see what about you. Plus it wasn't easy to find out how to permanently delete your account."

The third major social networking site included in the survey was MySpace. The site, famous for promoting music acts such as The Arctic Monkeys, was judged by the report to be too packed with additional features. The report said: "You can do a lot to customise your profile, which is great fun, but you'll end up with a gaudy browsing experience."

Abigail Waraker, editor of Computing Which? said: "Social networking sites are growing in popularity and, as the success of Bebo in our test shows, sites like MySpace and Facebook can't rest on their laurels if they want to stay in the game."

During the summer the BBC reported that social networking sites accounted for 233 million hours of work being lost by companies in the UK. Kent County Council banned workers from using Facebook in August, the same month that the website received 6.5 million visitors.

The BBC's website, BBC talk, scored 68%. "Set-up is simple and the lack of advertising is a definite plus. The familiarity and UK-centred approach is a big bonus," the report said.