STARTUP CHATTER

 Are congratulations due AOL for winning the $850 billion Bebo auction ? NO! Just ask AOL $1 billion “investor” Google! Or, ask CBS CEO Les Moonves.

After all, search engine marketing cash printing machine Google can’t make its $900 million “investment” in MySpace pay off, nor can it make its own in-house Orkut financially worthy of the Google logo.

Nevertheless, AOL is ecstatic that it won the privilege of dolling out nearly a billion dollars in a dilutive acquisition of a platform fueled by the likes of adolescent Ms. Lil Trikzz (Bebo profile above) who may be auditioning to join Eliott Spitzer’s fave Emperor’s Club, courtesy of Bebo!

Who knows what the lovely Bebo front-page member is up to, though. After all, her front page promoted Bebo profile is in a foreign language! YOU ALWAYS STOP TO STARE? Perhaps at “Lil,” but NOT at the Bebo old school banner ad seeking to “rent luxury”! No wonder Microsoft is not making big IAB standard banner ad money at Facebook.

Is ANYONE making money on social networks? Not according to industry players sharing stories from the field at the Media Summit underway in New York City

At yesterday’s “Advertising NEXT” panel, social network CPMs of less than 50 cents were lamented, and so was application and widget spam.

What does bring the big brand bucks to social networks? So far, only sanitized, walled-off, brand sponsored vertical sub networks immunized to the purportedly users are in control social networks are doing the small money trick.

AOL, Microsoft and News Corp. may be fine with paying inflated prices for UGC assets unattractive to national brand advertisers. CBS’ Moonves, however, prefers to apply his shareholder’s capital to accretive deals rather than dilutive ones. At his Media Summit keynote this morning, Moonves nixed any CBS interest in Facebook at a $15 billion valuation and pledged to Wall Street: NO DILUTIVE ACQUISITIONS FOR CBS!