Yesterday, TechCrunch’s U.K. blogger Mike Butcher spun the tale of buyer’s remorse run amok with a report that Time Warner online unit AOL was “seriously considering selling Bebo, the social network it acquired for $850 million only a year ago,” citing poor performance and a bad advertising market.

Later, AOL went on the record saying “there is no truth to this rumor,” although Butcher insisted otherwise from his sources.

Well, actually, no. While Time Warner was crazy to pay that much for Bebo, it is not quite that nuts to sell it for bupkis.

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Although its advertising business is tanking this quarter and its merger deal with Yahoo remains dormant, AOL is focusing on one of the brighter spots in its business: the popularity of its content sites.

Today, the Time Warner unit will announce the expansion of its publishing unit, which it is curiously called MediaGlow.

In a press release obtained by Boomtown, AOL said it would develop over 30 new sites in 2009, employing its low-cost, niche-focused model that has worked well at many of its 75 existing sites.

But is a deep dive into content a risk in the midst of an advertising downturn?

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Here’s a joke an exec at AOL recently sent me: Q: How many Yahoo and AOL dealmakers does it take to screw in a lightbulb A: None–you don’t need light if you’re never going to sign a merger agreement. Ahahahaha. Ha. Well, not really. So, seriously, what is Time Warner going to do about its AOL online unit?

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So while all the attention is on who Microsoft is hunting next–after its latest parry at grabbing Yahoo’s search business was foiled once again–has settled on Time Warner’s AOL, as BoomTown reported Monday, it would be a mistake to assume that the software giant is not still aiming directly at Yahoo.

Why?

Because it must, and not only for the reason–to get control of its Yahoo’s #2 search business–that has been much focused on.

It’s also Yahoo’s strong display advertising business that Microsoft is clearly after.

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Now, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes is a very natty executive.

But Bewkes is definitely looking 333 percent prettier to both Yahoo and Microsoft this morning, as their 2,365th round of talks to partner in some way–if you could call them that–collapsed yet again with more he-said-he-said recriminations.

Now, both Yahoo and Microsoft have got to be hightailing it across the dance floor to block the other from making a possible move on AOL.

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Could Ross Levinsohn and Jon Miller reinvent Yahoo? What about OpenTable’s Jeff Jordan? Or various and sundry Google or Microsoft execs?

It could happen.

That specific scenario of putting someone like the two former Internet execs in charge of the troubled Web giant is one of the many being bandied about, as Yahoo shares tumble and the company heads toward a potentially ugly annual meeting everyone involved desperately wants to avoid.

In fact, Yahoo’s board and major investors are talking today about various options for the company, including Yahoo’s receptivity to a sweetened deal with Microsoft and also other ways to pull the asset-rich company out of its stock doldrums.

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Microsoft does not have a secret plot to buy Yahoo.

Maybe Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer should be hovering in the wings, like a digital Simon Legree ready to pounce again on poor Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang.

But he’s not.

And still the hopeful, the suspicious and, most of all, the beaten down Yahoo shareholders continue to jump on any utterance from the software giant, even woefully mistranslating interviews with its top execs, to make it so.

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So what will Microsoft’s next quarry be?

Facebook? AOL? A series of small Web 2.0 stars like Digg (probably too late, as Google is already first in line there again), Spot Runner and others?

That is, if there will be one after the Yahoo takeover debacle or if the software giant somehow screws up the courage and, despite the constant rejection, goes back again to try to scoop up Yahoo.

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AOL announced today that it has forked over the $850 million dollars in cash for Bebo–presumably in small bills in big bags, so all the fully vested Bebo employees can’t run away quite as fast–completing its acquisition of the quirky #3 social networking site.

As part of the process, it has also created a new business unit, called the People Networks, which will be headed by Bebo President Joanna Shields.

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After its AOL division paid out an insane $850 million for social networking site Bebo yesterday, one had to wonder if the true digital legacy of Time Warner will be as the perpetual gravy train for legions of Web players.

It certainly seems that way from the original AOL execs who “merged” their company with Time Warner in 2000 and cashed out at the peak right after the deal to the series of ad networking startup entrepreneurs who got acquired, took their payouts and skidaddled right on through to the two founders of Bebo–Michael and Xochi Birch–who didn’t even stay long enough for a latte after grabbing their chunk of the payday Time Warner was handing out in crisp bank notes for the social networking site they founded.

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