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Bebo is teaming up with television production company Endemol for an exclusive series to air next year on the UK-based social network. Can you guess what it will be about? No? I’ll tell you.

The show (interactive, of course) will follow six Bebo users on a globe-trotting journey, kind of like that Real World stint that followed college kids on Semester at Sea. Called The Gap Year, Bebo users get to lend themselves as the stars for this one. Three guys and three girls will be chosen from the UK, Ireland, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Even the auditions will be interactive, with casting calls beginning in December, and users submit video postcards in order to be considered for the series. The actual show itself seems to be a lot like The Amazing Race, where contestants will face challenges as they travel across the world. This will all be documented for the rest of the world to sit back and watch.

While the level of interactivity seems to be higher than most for The Gap Year, will additional user engagement be enough to support the oncoming avalanche of network-produced content? MySpace has begun its efforts as well, teaming up with Iron Sink Media to offer branded content for users, also delivered in an interactive manner.

How will this effect individual content producers? For now, it’s actually spurring the development of the industry, as networks sometimes turn to independently operated production companies for co-branded efforts. But as traditional media becomes increasingly involved in the creation of network-specific content, this may be a fleeting moment for content creators, especially as the space becomes saturated with this type of content on existing social networks.

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