Earlier this week, AOL lost Curt Viebranz, the former president of Platform-A. Then Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes said he was looking to sell AOL. That prompted The New York Times blog to warn Lynda Clarizio, Viebranz's successor, that her job may be cursed. But all that bad news takes a back seat to AOL's latest bombshell: the company has said it will purchase British social network Bebo for $850 million.    

According to a Reuters report, AOL had been talking to Bebo for the last six months trying to hash out a deal.

"AOL, at its core, is a way for people to connect," AOL President Ron Grant told Reuters in a phone interview on Thursday. "We need to get back to our roots."

But getting back to its roots hasn't been the message from AOL, which has worked feverishly to transition from an internet provider to a player in the online advertising business. Bebo, which faces the same problems as its MySpace and Facebook rivals -- namely how to monetize social networking -- would seem to be a step toward advertising and away from the company's roots, despite the obvious promise of connecting users.

Lineage aside, in Bebo AOL will get the third largest social network in the U.S. and 40 million users around the globe. Bebo is the market leader in Great Britain, Ireland and New Zealand.