Well, it looks like it took slightly longer than initial estimates, but AOL has finally unloaded sold social networking, ummm, platform for a massive (just under) $10 million. That’s $840 million less than they paid for it. No, that’s not a typo. Eight hundred and forty million dollars. Gone. Down the drain. Ouch.

But let’s take a stop back a few years, when AOL was trumpeting it’s own horns on the successful acquisition of Bebo, a one-time Facebook competitor. The idea was to use Bebo as a springboard for all future AOL social networking activities. Admittedly, a sound strategy and solid business idea.

Founded in 2002 by Michael Birch and is wife Xochi, Bebo (which is a moniker for Blog Early, Blog Often) started to see the light in early 2005. It soon started taking off, and at one point was garnering more traffic than Amazon; If you’re looking solely at British analytics. At the time of purchase, AOL had some serious expansionism in mind, and figured that under their banner, Bebo could duplicate the same success on American shores (same language, right?). In 2008, AOL took the plunge and signed on the dotted line to take over control of Bebo. Arguably, Mr. and Mrs. Birch made the deal of the decade.

And while the initial response was positive, Bebo, just like many other competitors to Facebook began the slow decent into the abyss. Between the time of purchase (February 2008) and this past March, over 10 million users have abandoned their Bebo accounts.

Noteworthy; because AOL sold Bebo for such a minuscule amount in comparison to what they paid for it, they weren’t legally required to report it – and at first, they didn’t. Bebo’s new owners Criterion Capital Partners, issued a press release, and it wasn’t until persistent media inquiries finally broke down the wall of AOL shame silence.

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong comments, “Criterion Capital Partners are specialists in facilitating growth plans and turnarounds, and well placed to drive Bebo’s effort to strengthen its foothold within the highly competitive social networking arena.”

Un huh.

And now for one of the best parts of the entire fiasco: Due to the complexities of US corporate tax laws, because AOL sold Bebo for less than $10 million, they’ll be able to use the sale as a write off. Judging by standard corporate tax rates, AOL stands to gain in the neighborhood of $300 million in tax credits, plus the $10 million it picked up from Criterian. Not quite the price they paid for it, but a heckuva lot better than whipping a dead horse.

Now don’t get me wrong, I have no feelings either way towards Bebo. I think I opened an account there sometime back in the oughts, but never really did anything with it. Criterion Capital may have just made the purchase of the millennium, because if there’s anything to learn from social networks that aren’t Facebook, is that they can come back in many different forms. Hi5 is a prime example of this mechanism at work.

Adam Levin, a managing partner at Criterion Capital Partners agrees, “The young, highly active user base, revenue history, presence in countries throughout the world and solid technical infrastructure make it [Bebo] an attractive media platform both as a standalone entity and in the context of our broader investment objectives.”