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-in a third update to his piece-insisted otherwise from his sources.

In my favorite hedge ever, Butcher noted: "I’m not saying Bebo is formally on the block, but I am saying that a sale is something under consideration."

Well, actually, no.

What is true, which Butcher did do an excellent job outlining, is that AOL most certainly overestimated the prospects for Bebo as an advertising and growth vehicle, hoping that Bebo’s interesting new media offerings-like its "KateModern" online series-combined with a social network was the magic bullet.