In both cases, that lurch on the right hand side shows you how unpleasant things got post-Lehman, and the subsequent recovery shows that we’re getting close to where we were back in 2008. So that’s good.

The only problem with the data is that it only goes through this summer, and we’re just about to get a new set of Q3 numbers, starting with Google’s (GOOG) on Thursday. So best to check back then to get an updated sense of how things really stand.

CBS (CBS) says it will stop doing business with the ad networks, which are ubiquitous on the Web, and will offer access to its audience of 60 million unique visitors solely via its own salesforce.

AdAge’s Michael Learmonth says CBS, bolstered by its 2008 purchase of CNET, is the biggest publisher on the Web to cut off the hundreds of networks that try to match publishers and ad buyers.

Sounds right to me. Because while lots of people like to complain about ad networks, almost everyone uses them.

Other big publishers that have cut off ad networks entirely include Time Warner’s (TWX) Turner Networks, the Gawker Media blog network and…not many others.

The ad network debate in a nutshell: Anti-ad network types argue that handing over inventory to the networks gives publishers a short-term boost because it allows them to sell ads they wouldn’t move on their own. But doing so trains buyers to avoid buying higher-priced inventory from the publishers themselves, which means that stuff gets harder to sell in the long run.

The counterargument: What are you people smoking? Ad buyers should be trying to reach their target audience at the lowest possible price. And trying to fight that impulse is like fighting gravity.

Still, there is a larger movement afoot to try to at least sell some inventory at higher prices, even if that means leaving dollars (or pennies) on the table.

That’s one of the cornerstones of Aol CEO Tim Armstrong’s strategy, and it’s what Yahoo (YHOO) is trying to do as it reshapes its Right Media platform. See also: Firms like 5to1, which say they can turn publishers’ low-rent “remnant” ads into more valuable stuff.

The countermovement, though, is at least as strong, as ad buyers and brokers use technology to move more and more inventory at ever-more “efficient”–i.e., cheap–prices. See: Google’s (GOOG) relaunched DoubleClick exchange and the one that Microsoft (MSFT) intends to roll out next month.

For the record: Disney (DIS) says it always intended to move the company, which offers “bite-sized ideas for green living” via email and a Web site, from its corporate strategy group to its interactive division, which will happen later this year. At that point, “it will still continue in some form,” says spokesman Michelle Bergman.

That doesn’t sound good. Disney says it plans to conduct a review of the unit, so it’s not ready to answer some basic questions about the email newsletter company. Like: Are co-founders Heather Stephenson (who lives and works in San Francisco) and Jennifer Boulden (who until this summer lived and worked in Bozeman, Mont.; she’s now in Los Angeles, I’m told) staying on? Will Disney have to take a write-down on the property? Will there be layoffs? “It’s too early to say. I can’t tell you,” Bergman says.

Okay. But If I had to bet, I’d say at least some of the dozen-plus employees will be hitting the job market.

Disney paid a reported $20 million for the property a year and a half ago, and the plan was to create a big green-centered business around it, but that hasn’t panned out, sources said. The company, founded in 2005, is one of the many lifestyle newsletter businesses backed by Bob Pittman’s Pilot Group.

Comcast (CMCSA) bought DailyCandy, the best known of Pittman’s stable, for $125 million a little more than a year ago. That was surely one of the last “pre-Lehman” Web 2.0 M&A deals, but grunts and murmurs out of Philadelphia and Pilot indicate the business has held up during the recession. And Thrillist, a “DailyCandy for dudes” effort that has yet to sell, seems to be booming.

One answer: Several million dollars.

Oh, and did I mention there’s no business model attached to said Web service?

Still with me?

OK. Here are the details: Betaworks, the incubator/start-up platform best known for selling Twitter a search engine for $15 million last year, is taking in-house project bit.ly and spinning it out as a separate company. A group of new investors, led by O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, has poured about $2 million into the company, which implies a valuation in the midseven figure range.

Other investors include Howard Lindzon’s Social Leverage group, Jeff Clavier’s SoftTech VC, and uber-angel Ron Conway. O’Reilly’s Bryce Roberts will join the board of the four-man company.

bit.ly is one of roughly a gazillion url-shorteners, all of which do the same thing. They take an unwieldy Web address like, say, this one: “http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090330/huffington-post-pays-for-content-after-all-via-175-million-investigative-fund/” and turn it into something concise like this: “http://bit.ly/14WdlB.”

If you spend much time on Facebook, Twitter or any other Web service where brevity is useful, you’ve encountered a shortened URL, and you’re likely seeing more and more of them all the time. The bit.ly guys say people clicked on 20 million of their shortened Web addresses last week, and that the number is increasing by about 10 percent a week.

Great. So where’s the money? Many of bit.ly’s competitors, like the aptly named tinyurl.com, generate modest revenue by running Google (GOOG) ads against the many eyeballs that come to the site to use the service. But bit.ly won’t sell ads, and it plans on distinguishing itself by tracking all the clicks and streams that come through the service and using the data to provide interesting analytics and insights into who’s looking at what on the Web, in real time.

The logic: If you’re impressed with the possibilities of Twitter’s real-time search capabilities (see above), you’ll love bit.ly.

Great. So where’s the money? bit.ly is free to users, and the company says it doesn’t plan on selling its analytics or other tools to publishers. Team bit.ly says revenue will come sometime down the road, from something else–when they figure out what that is.

That kind of shrugging was par for the course during Boom 2.0 days. But in the dark days of last fall, even the sunniest Web optimists, including Betaworks founder John Borthwick himself, were telling start-ups that they had to face reality and start making money.

So either things have gotten much better than we realized or the bit.ly investors think it’s still worth betting on fast-growing, revenue-free start-ups. It’d be nice if both things are true.

As I noted in a post yesterday, Expedia observed on its post-earnings conference call that the softness the company had been seeing in the U.S. and the U.K. earlier in the year has now extended to “nearly all” geographies and all key product areas, including air, hotels and car rentals. The company indicated that transactions dropped off during the week Lehman went bankrupt, and have not rebounded much since.

This morning, several analysts cut ratings on the stock.

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Conversely, Lehman–I mean, Barclay’s Capital–research analyst Vishal Shah writes in a note today that he is lowering his estimates for First Solar (FSLR), dropping his 2008 profit per share estimate from $3.78 to $3.60, and from $7.50 to $6 in 2009, and from $11 to $9 in 2010, given reduced expectations for foreign exchange benefit thanks to a “deteriorating Eurozone outlook.”

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The company, which is an equipment supplier to the flat-panel display business, has an agreement in place to be acquired by Orbotech (ORBK) for $15.60 a share in cash. In fact, on Friday the company announced that its holders had approved the deal. So riddle me this: Why is the stock trading like something about the deal has gone very wrong? PHTN is down $2.34, or 15.5 percent, to $12.74. Orbotech, meanwhile, is up 5 cents, at $10.52.

I’ve left a message for the company, and will left you know if/when I hear from them.

Update: So, now I’m wondering if the completion of the deal has been affected by the issues at Lehman, which has been Orbotech’s financial adviser on the transaction. The deal, which was for about $290 million, was to be financed by a combination of internal and external funds.

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Anmuth says consensus numbers could come down further, ahead of Q3 results; on the other hand, he says the stock in the low $400s “should prove to be a compelling entry point.” According to Anmuth, “GOOG still appears better insulated” to macro softness than other in online advertising; it continues to gain market share “and should benefit from new search improvements and tighter cost controls.”

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But you might think otherwise, judging from this week’s action in solar stocks. The sector, which suffered considerable losses yesterday, today went into freefall, with many names in the sector suffering losses of more than 10 percent. Exactly why investors decided to bail on the stocks today is unclear, but there are a number of factors that appear to be contributing to the current solar scare.

Lehman analyst Vishal Shah wrote a note on the solar sector that, in general, was quite bullish and, in fact, repeated his recommendations on First Solar (FSLR), SunPower (SPWR), Suntech (STP) and JA Solar (JASO). But Shah also noted that most solar companies have provided “somewhat aggressive guidance” for 2009 on the assumption that poly supply would become readily available from the spot market or silicon partners.

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In a research note this morning, Lehman’s Korea-based chip analyst, C.W. Chung, said that DRAM contract prices in the first half of September are set to decline another 10 percent, following a 10 percent drop in the second half of August. And Chung sees a further fall in the second half of September.

Chung says PC makers recently have been lowering their outlook for the second half, effectively reduced DRAM demand. He also says that those companies now have greater negotiating power to push DRAM prices lower.

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HSN (HSNIV) today is up 95 cents, or 8.7 percent, to $11.85. Anmuth puts the value of the company at $15.45 a share. Implied market cap at current price based on 57.2 million shares out is $677.8 million.

Interval Leisure Group (IILGV) is down 20 cents, or 1.5 percent, to $13. He thinks it is worth $12.28 a share. Implied market cap based on 57.2 million shares out is $743.6 million.

Ticketmaster (TKTMV) is down 38 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $23.33. Anmuth puts its fair value at $33.12 a share. Implied market cap based on 57.2 million shares out is $1.33 billion.

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Certainly, demand is robust. Lehman’s Ben Reitzes today writes in a research note that “checks indicate” Apple (AAPL) iPhone demand in the fiscal fourth quarter ending September could top his current estimate of 3.8 million units. And he adds that this “bodes well for cash flow,” and for “an enhanced halo effect for Macs.”

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Um takes over coverage of the stocks from Ben Reitzes, who now covers the sector for Lehman. Um sees 2008 PC global units growing 13 percent, propelled by strong notebook growth and strength in emerging markets. That said, Um reports that his near-term bias on the PC hardware market is “neutral, largely reflecting concerns regarding slowing GDP and consumer/enterprise spending.” While he sees healthy unit growth, he also says that competition, mix shift and technological advances will drive down average prices. He sees industry-wide revenue grow next year at nine percent.

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