For the record. In amongst Staci and Rafat’s coverage from the D6 conference in Carlsbad, California, Rupert Murdoch confirmed earlier rumours News Corp (NYSE: NWS) was in talks to buy Bebo: “We looked at it about a year ago, and it was $100 million or something in that range.”

That’s an eye-popping $750 million less than the $850 million AOL (NYSE: TWX) ended up splashing in March. AOL must have wanted Bebo and its 40 million members really bad to pay that kind of premium. Or maybe Murdoch just ended up realising there’s life left yet in MySpace - the net he bought three years ago for $580 million, when it had 22 million members.

Yesterday, Jeff Bewkes, CEO of AOL parent Time Warner told D6: “There’s some question of whether we paid too much for Bebo, and if it’s true, it’s not much to a company our size. I’m not real concerned about that.”

One Bebo staffer got in hot water last year when she posted to her profile that Murdoch was in the social net’s San Francisco office, though a flack told me the visit never happened and was down to office hijinx. Bebo president Joanna Shields later told us: “There was definitely a bidding process; we went out and we talked to a number of potential companies and we had a number of very attractive bids.”

Pic courtesy: AllThingsD, Asa Mathat.

• AOL-Bebo: Links To Coverage Across Our Sites
• AOL Buying Bebo For £417 Million
• Rumourbusting: Bebo/Murdoch, Free Indie, WAYN/AOL