AOL Specula-thon, continued

Following up on my original post:

Now that AOL has decided to go with Google instead of Microsoft, people are wondering why both sides really did it.

John Battelle is on the case, pretty much tearing Google and AOL new ones for what appears a strangely disingenuous or simply stupid explanation from Google.

But the real juicy item from Battelle's post is at the very end: Google's got a liquidity event (DotCom Bubble alert!) trigger set to go off in July 2008, either via IPO or a sellback to Time Warner. That's a two-and-a-half-year investment horizon. Fatting the calf for slaughter ... erm, sale.