• GigaOm, Friday, March 13, 2009 12 PM

Why is Tim Armstrong, who until yesterday was Google's SVP of ad sales, taking on "mission impossible" by becoming AOL's Chairman and CEO? "To put it simply," says Om Malik, "Armstrong wants to run a public company," something that certainly wasn't going to happen for him at Google, with the "firmly entrenched" triumvirate of Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt running the show.

Of course, Armstrong won't be running a public company -- yet. But that's the idea, says Malik, and Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes pretty much said as much in the press release: "(Armstrong will) also be helpful in helping Time Warner determine the optimal structure for AOL." The optimal structure, of course, is turning the company around and then spinning it off, says Malik.

That has to be the new Plan A, as the old one, a possible merger with either Microsoft or Yahoo, never came off. But before a spin off can happen, Armstrong needs to reconcile AOL's three main businesses: content, people networks and advertising. At the moment, content is the only one that seems to be thriving for the company, Malik says. People networks is kind of a disaster thanks to the $850 million Bebo acquisition, while advertising, which is driven by Platform A, the company's ad services division, is being hurt by the overall economy. "Those three divisions together cannot be spun out as a separate company," says Malik. "To put it mildly, it would be 10 pounds of horse manure in a five-pound bag."

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