It seems Joanna Shields has found another mark. Barely 18 months ago, she sold her also-ran social network Bebo to AOL for $850 million. The disastrous deal still haunts AOL. Now she's charmed Rupert Murdoch's daughter into bankrolling her. How?

• Joanna Shields, who served as president of Bebo before its acquisition by AOL (and now serves as president of AOL People Networks), picked up a two-bedroom duplex at 31 West 16th for $2.175 million. The 1,700-square-foot apartment features 16-foot ceilings, a suspended wood-and-steel staircase, and an outdoor garden. [Cityfile]

No one can make sense of AOL's $850 million Bebo buy, not even Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, who is dropping hints that his company overpaid for the social network. AOL CEO Randy Falco and COO Ron Grant, shown here in a deliciously awkward moment with Bebo president Joanna Shields, negotiated the deal in secret, to the disbelief of their underlings. But there's one strategic way in which the Bebo buy makes sense.

As AOL closes its $850 million Bebo acquisition today, the biggest loser in the deal — other than the many Time Warner execs who hate the acquisition — has to be Yahoo, which is losing its answer to the partnerships between Google and MySpace and Microsoft and Facebook. When Yahoo won the deal to manage social network Bebo's display and video advertising in the U.K. and Ireland last September, part of Yahoo's triumph was getting an inside shot at Bebo's global business. Bebo CEO Joanna Shields said she was keen to see it happen. Not anymore. Don't expect Bebo to renew its current deal with Yahoo, which expires in September 2009, either.

If not in traffic or revenues, where has Bebo leapt ahead of MySpace and Facebook? In turning its social network into a TV channel, says NewTeeVee's Liz Gannes. She credits Bebo president Joanna Shields with figuring out the LonelyGirl15 phenomenon in 2007 and hiring the show's creators. Thus was born KateModern, which has been seen some 30 million times, earning exactly $405,000. Expect more of that, the pro-Bebo argument goes, now that the company is tied up with media giant Time Warner. With 2,099 more hits like that, and the deal might pay off.

Before agreeing to sell to AOL for $850 million, Bebo president Joanna Shields tried to sell the company to News Corp., Google, Yahoo and CBS. Didn't happen. Bebo gets too little traffic in the U.S., sources from those companies told BoomTown. Microscopic revenues probably didn't help Bebo reach its hoped-for $1 billion pricetag, either. In 2006, Bebo revenues were $7 million, with just $3 million in EBITDA — Wall Street's favored measure of operating profit. Last year, total revenues climbed to $20 million, $5 million in EBITDA. So that's a price-to-earnings ratio of 160. Oh, maybe AOL CEO Randy Falco's valuing it on growth, you say? Let's run those numbers.