• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, February 4, 2010

Thanks to CEO Tim Armstrong's prior job history, AOL has successfully stolen another executive from Google's seemingly stronger clutches.

On March 1, David Eun will join AOL as president of its Media and Studios division -- where, as its chief content executive, he will be responsible for the company's more than 80 content sites and its new SEED.com publishing platform, as well as the newly acquired StudioNow video platform and AOL's NYC and LA studios.

Eun is replacing Bill Wilson, who spent nine years as president of AOL Media.

At Google, Eun served as vice president of strategic partnerships, where he was responsible for managing global content partnerships for Google as well as YouTube.

At AOL, Eun will report directly to Armstrong -- who he worked for at Google not long ago. Until 2006, Eun helped to oversee AOL as VP of operations for the Media & Communications Group at Time Warner.

Why rejoin a company that just reported revenue down 17% year-over-year?

"AOL has a unique opportunity to bring together its core strengths in the key areas of content and journalism, distribution, and advertising," said Eun. "These three elements will be fundamental to success as the media and technology industries evolve and converge."

Since March 2009, when Tim Armstrong left Google for AOL, a number of Google senior employees have followed his lead. Last April, Jeff Levick -- Google's then VP of industry development and marketing -- said he was jumping ship to serve as head of AOL's advertising business Platform-A.

More recently, last September, AOL brought on ex-Google exec Shashi Seth as SVP of global advertising products. When Seth left Google, he was head of monetization for YouTube.

On a crusade to put AOL back on the right track, Armstrong has lately been talking up the company's 100 million monthly unique visitors, and its ability to reach multiple audiences with one ad buy.

In a word, Armstrong's vision centers around content -- and original rather than repurposed. A year ago, AOL licensed as much as 80% of its content, while today, the company says it generates 80% of it.

"Content is at the core of our strategy and we have broad aspirations in this space," Armstrong said in an internal memo released Thursday. "We're focused on scaling our content platforms, production and partnerships."

Last year, Armstrong outlined a new five-point strategy for the future of AOL. As outlined internally and to members of the press, it included the continued expansion of its communication tools, vertical content, local and online mapping services, its third-party ad network, and early-stage investment through a newly formed AOL Ventures arm.

Likewise, the new AOL is being positioned less as a Web portal and more as a fragmented network of niche content sites. This MediaGlow network, so-called, encompasses over 70 niche content sites -- with many more on the way.

Prior to AOL and Time Warner, Eun was a partner at Arts Alliance, a venture capital firm focusing on digital media, information technology and business services. He started his career in media at NBC, where he led some of NBC's first cross-media initiatives involving television programming, the Internet, and retail consumer products.