Last September, Henry Blodget asked me and several other VCs on a panel–titled “Dot Bomb 2.0″–how many of the estimated 300 to 400 ad networks were “toast.” (My personal view is that only 15 to 20 really matter.) Comments like “rampant consolidation” and “decimation” were used to describe the impending, inevitable shakeout that was sure to come.

Almost a year later, no apocalyptic shakeout has hit yet. So what happened?

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There was a fair bit of chatter in the blogosphere yesterday about an analysis by Ross Sandler at RBC showing the remarkable growth of Facebook and the traffic the site “drives” to Google (GOOG).

The punch line that a bunch of folks took away from the analysis was that Facebook drives 19 percent of Google’s sessions. Henry Blodget made this conclusion as did a lot of others.

But I think this stat is completely misleading, and significantly overstates the importance of Facebook to Google. Let’s look at the key numbers that Ross discusses:

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Jason Calacanis just put Twitter in business. How? He offered $250,000 to be one of 20 users in Twitter’s “Suggested Follows” for two years.

Twitter is growing so fast that being on the “suggested” list for new users can generate more than 10,000 followers a day. Jason thinks the slots will soon be worth a Super-Bowl-like $1 million a year, as companies compete to be able to send real-time messages directly to millions of followers.

Or not.

Dave Winer complains that the Suggested Follows list is unfair. Twitter investor Fred Wilson seems to agree:

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NBC actually showed Michael Phelps live on the East Coast last night as he shattered his own world record in the 400 individual medley. We watched–and, suddenly, the Olympics were as awesome as, well, the Olympics. If you live on the West Coast, of course, thanks to another absurd decision by NBC, you only got to watch the race after reading about Phelps’s victory online, when it was about as exciting as 1970s Super Bowls.

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At a meeting with about a dozen senior members of AOL’s staff Monday, Jeff Bewkes left at least one member of management with the impression that the company is for sale, a source close to the company says. Another person who attended the same meeting says Jeff did not say specifically that the company is for sale but merely said that “everyone is talking to everyone” and that AOL might someday be sold.

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One thing’s for certain: The collapse of the Yahoo-Microsoft deal could be the best thing to happen to Time Warner’s Jeff Bewkes for a good long time.

Yahoo reportedly has a deal teed up to buy AOL for about $10 billion. We suspect that the newly dumped Microsoft may have something to say about that.

AOL wouldn’t give Microsoft what Yahoo would have, but it would help the company strengthen its Web-based communication business (AIM, AOL Mail, etc.). MapQuest could be a nice fit with Microsoft’s mapping products.

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Yahoo’s search partnership with Google played a major role in allowing the company to fight off Microsoft. By offering the hope of immediately higher cash flow, it should also stop Yahoo’s stock price from falling back to the teens.

In his sayonara letter, Steve Ballmer urged Yahoo to kill the partnership, arguing that the engineers behind Panama were one of the main reasons Microsoft wanted to buy Yahoo and that, if Yahoo did the deal with Google, they would leave.

And he’s right: They will (or at least they’ll move on to other projects). That’s part of the reason the outsourcing deal makes sense: It allows Yahoo to focus on businesses it can win, instead of throwing money at a war it has already lost.

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I’m reading Henry Blodget’s story reporting on Jason Calacanis’ rant about how it’s the Demo conference organizers who are to blame for the scheduling conflict that pits TechCrunch 50 against DemoFall, and I have to say, I’m a little dubious about Calacanis’ statements.

According to Calacanis–who gave Blodget an “exclusive” interview on the matter despite telling me yesterday that he was deferring to TC 50 co-organizer Michael Arrington on the matter–the conflict is all Demo’s fault.

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Yahoo dispelled concerns that Q1 will be a disaster and released details of its last, best hope to stave off a Microsoft acquisition: its own growth plan.

The plan calls for revenue and cash flow acceleration in 2009 and 2010 (after a retrenchment in 2008). It also provides support for Yahoo’s argument that it’s worth at least $40 a share.

We think the plan is more of a “best case” scenario than a “most likely” case, but at least we now have concrete assumptions on which to evaluate Yahoo’s evaluation of itself.

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Japan’s four big ISP organizations have taken a logical step toward controlling file sharing: Flagrant violators will be warned via email and then disconnected, the Yomiuri Shimbun says. Although this practice will horrify the content-should-be-free community, it’s actually a far more sensible approach than, say, the RIAA’s suing sharers. It is also, presumably, a smart step for ISPs struggling to control the exploding use of bandwidth.

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We still occasionally encounter people who argue that physical newspapers and TV news shows have a vital role to play in the dissemination of news. These folks usually work for physical newspapers and TV networks, of course.

In any event, Zogby’s annual importance-of-news-source poll shows just how fast traditional news media are going extinct.

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As the world recovers from the comScore report that floored Google’s stock two days ago, a theory is gaining steam that the whole click problem can be attributed to Google’s “accidental click reduction” program. Google may not be as badly off as the comScore report suggests, but the accidental-click theory is flat-out wrong.

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Microsoft shareholders hate the Yahoo deal (as they should–because it will be a disaster). Now that Yahoo’s last propaganda effort–”alternatives”–is petering out, its next one should be aimed directly at these angry shareholders.

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Microsoft’s shareholders are unhappy about the Yahoo offer–and they’re expressing their displeasure by voting with their feet. As they do, they’re driving the price of Microsoft’s stock down, which, in turn, is driving the value of Microsoft’s Yahoo bid down. As explained here, it’s now only worth about $29.50 per share.

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We’ve poked fun at Yahoo’s efforts to pretend that it’s in control of this Microsoft process, and we’ve argued that the transaction is pretty much a done deal. One thing we want to be clear about, however: Yahoo is smart to search for alternatives, because if the deal proceeds as proposed, it will be a disaster–for both Yahoo and Microsoft. (If you’re already persuaded of this, see The Answer. If not, read on.) Why will Microsoft-Yahoo be a disaster? Three reasons:

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