Just a year after acquiring the social network for $850 million, AOL is now considering a sale, according to Mike Butcher writing for TechCrunch.

“AOL is indeed quietly pondering a sale after watching Bebo perform much worse than it had hoped. That, combined with an advertising market buffeted by the waves of the economic downturn, means Bebo’s days at AOL could be numbered. Selling Bebo after only a year would be an astounding about-face. How did this happen?”

Though the companies themselves deny this, Butcher writes a long and detailed analysis of the situation backed up by sources close to the companies, including a venture capitalist. Robert Andrews at paidContent says they too heard the rumours but their sources at AOL and Time Warner emphatically deny the veracity of the gossip. Nevertheless, Andrews writes:

“There’s no denying $850 million was a lot to pay for Bebo, which had good traction with youngsters in the UK, Ireland and Australasia but was used less elsewhere.”

Eric Eldon at VentureBeat writes:

“Perhaps the disgruntlement cited in the TechCrunch report comes from lack of Bebo revenue in 2008? But given Bebo’s role in potentially making AOL an interesting product company again, getting rid of Bebo now would be the best way to guarantee that AOL ends up with absolutely nothing from the purchase.”

Elsewhere on the web:

Jeff Jarvis‘ long-awaited book What Would Google Do? has arrived and with it a host of new media approaches get a feel for the content, including a HarperCollins widget, a video synopsis, a v-book (which Jarvis helpfully explains is an e-book with videos) and a PowerPoint presentation. Jarvis writes: “I hope to continue the conversation that went into the book and comes out. So I’ll be putting up 30 days of WWGD? – a snippet a day from all over the book. … For the first snippet, there’s no better place to start than the beginning”

There seems to be a conversation springing up around the idea of social media trust. Danny Bradbury asked the question in relation to Twitter, while Steve Rubel puts the question to his Friendfeed followers: “Thinking about social media trust today. How do you determine who to trust and why? It’s no longer about Technorati authority. What do you do?”