Bebo to Astra Life Forms: "We want to be your friends [and get some silly season column inches]"

Social networking site Bebo has created a digital time capsule to send personal messages and pictures to the nearest planet that could hold life.

Bebo users can create their own images or text via an application and vie for a spot in the final 500.

The messages to be sent will be chosen via a web vote, and broadcast on 9 October by the National Space Agency of Ukraine's giant RT-70 radar telescope and are expected to reach their target during spring 2029.

Now, this story has been on the google news front page for THREE days now - an incredible shelf life.

This is, of course, the silly season, and as August continues there are some weeks when it seems you're the only one going to work.

So Bebo has been very successful in getting the maximum publicity for a pretty uninteresting 'innovation'.

I, for one, (as someone who doesn't like social networking sites very much) hope it horribly backfires.

Wouldn't it be great if Lori from Texas' message of "Like, hi to everyone out there" turns out to be the most insulting thing you can say on Omnicron Ceti III, prompting an interstellar battlecruiser to turn up and blast her into superheated gas?