After his 100-day VisionQuest to figure out what to do at AOL, Tim Armstrong is in a chattier mood.

The former Google (GOOG) advertising exec took over the perpetually troubled Internet icon in the spring and has been on a worldwide tour of its offices, meeting employees and trying to get a lay of the land of where the Time Warner (TWX) unit has been and where it should be going.

So, BoomTown did not waste a New York–where AOL has its HQ, in fact–minute in getting on the horn with Armstrong to finally hear his take.

There’s not a lot of new stuff to reveal, of course, beyond what Armstrong has already said over the last months about AOL’s new direction.

That would be a spinoff in November, a focus on advertising, content, local, communications and starting a venture unit.

Here is the interview, which we did by phone on Friday:

BoomTown: So, what’s your overall assessment of AOL and its prospects after your 100-day look-see?

Armstrong: Well, to start, I feel good about the company and where we are at. What I mean by that is that I feel good about what the company’s opportunities are.

B: What were you most surprised by on the downside and on the upside?

A: I think basically things were about 50 percent more negative and 50 percent more positive than I thought.

On the negative side, it has mostly been a crisis of confidence. I think people at AOL had started to believe the business press that it was just an incremental part of the Internet.

On the plus side, there are very surprising assets, which have been neglected, but are amazing. Such as Winamp, ICQ and the really incredible engineering talent all over the world–in India, Tel Aviv, Dublin.

B: What was the one thing you took away as the most important thing to do first?

A: Well, it is important for everyone to understand that AOL should not be in every business out there. That there are a limited set of things we have to commit to do better than anyone else.

Over the years, for example, there were so many acquisitions. But a lot of them became businesses that we were not fully committed to, and we have to start making clear choices and letting the rest go.

B: Such as?

A: Well, we are going to be focused on scaling content, advertising, email, messaging and local, but making it easier and less complicated.

In the ad business, for example, we have 100 products. I think we can be much more successful with less.

And we have different publishing platforms all over the world, just as the Web has become about having centralized technology. We have been missing the core characteristic of the Internet, which is about one platform.

B: Talk a little about what you are doing in the content space. AOL, via its MediaGlow unit, has been creating a lot of small blogs in a variety of categories, but also has big sites.

A: We are going to do both things. One thing I would say is that we have a content strategy that spans the content we create, the content we are buying and partnering on, and I think we have clear plans in terms of investing in each area.

B: What about communications?

A: I think you are very quickly going to see us cleaning up email products. And in the messaging space, one of the things we will be doing is integrating it more with other AOL properties.

Historically, the management has looked at messaging as how to drive monetization and it has been a bad experience. I think that it more important as a recirculation tool.

B: How realistic were you about AOL when you arrived compared to now?

A: I went into this job with my eyes wide open and I am not saying now that I have answers to every problem.

But I have been trying to do what it takes to solve the big ones, such as recruiting and building a team. I have also spent a lot of time finding talent in the company already here.

And, I have worked with people outside the company. I consider my job being whatever it takes and educate myself.

B: So what’s next, besides the already announced spinoff? Is AOL still an acquisition target?

A: I look at it in two different ways.

We need to stay very laser-focused on strategy and execution, as well as innovation.

And we have to build this company as a powerful independent one.

AOL has been looked at as a target for a long time, where AOL has been the prey. It might also change in that we can be the hunter too.

B: What about the online advertising and search deal with Google?

A: Well, it ends in December of 2010, as everyone knows.

I have to say that the partnership has been extremely successful on many fronts.

They have been our partners for eight years and there has been a lot of momentum.

But we also have to think about how to continue that for the right outcome for what we need in future, because AOL has changed since the partnership started.

Of course, we will look at other partners, but we also really know we have a great relationship that exists with a partner that is also going to be listening to us about what we need.

It’s not often these days that you get any kind of public offering in the market for tech companies–so a lot of people in Silicon Valley and elsewhere are looking at the fall spinoff of AOL very carefully.

That’s because, even though AOL is widely considered to be an also-ran by Silicon Valley (same as it ever was, actually, even at the height of its power in the late 1990s), many are very interested in serving on its board.

According to many sources, exactly who will be on what will likely be a 10-12 member board of directors for the company is up for grabs, once it decouples from owner Time Warner (TWX).

Thus, AOL, with Time Warner’s top execs’ involvement, sources said, has compiled a list of about 70 possible candidates–picked, suggested and self-nominated–and is now proceeding to vet them and begin the process of asking people to serve.

It should not be a tough sell. After all, despite its recent struggles, AOL remains one of the major Internet sites, with massive traffic, several well-known products and a large advertising business.

In addition, people seem inclined to see what kind of overhaul new CEO and Chairman Tim Armstrong can pull off and whether the former Google (GOOG) exec can work some magic.

He’s been formulating plans for what stays and what goes in the company as he tries to shine up the apple–or put lipstick on the pig, depending on your perspective–for investor consumption.

That includes keeping the access business, which many thought would be sold off, and putting many of the companies it has recently acquired–including its pricey Bebo social networking site–in a separate ventures unit, which will try to attract outside investment or sell off assets.

The strategy will focus AOL on several key areas, including media, local, “scaled” advertising and communications.

The jury is out on how successful Armstrong will be at innovating at AOL. But with almost zero IPO action and little prospect of any in the near future, it’s about the only such game in town as it moves to what is likely to be an October spinoff.

To help Armstrong sort through the choices, BoomTown is now compiling a suggestion list of fancy names I would recommend, and will do another post on that next, along with a general idea of what stays and what goes.

Until then, here are the broad outlines of what AOL needs to look for in a board:

One media mogul, one consumer electronics exec, one entrepreneur, one publishing exec, one Time Warner exec, one social networking exec, one advertising exec, one entertainment/Hollywood exec, one telecom/mobile exec, one consumer brand exec, one Internet mogul, and, of course, Armstrong.

And, as a definite requirement, given that there are way too many on way too many Internet company boards: No venture capitalists need apply.

How much is BoomTown and everyone else in Silicon Valley trying to nab a copy of Ben Mezrich’s likely-to-be-entirely-made-up-but-who-cares tale of dirty doings at Facebook?

Muchety-much! So much so that I called all my book industry contacts–hey, I am a published author, ya know!–even though I have not actually completed reading a book since the Internet started and gave me permanent attention deficit disorder.

But, so far I have come up peanuts in grabbing an early copy of Mezrich’s tome, “The Accidental Billionaires,” which is set to come out July 14.

Facebook is not pleased, of course, and will likely be challenging Mezrich’s work as specious dreck. But the drama around the book should be interesting, to say the least.

More so, since this week also came news that actors Michael Cera and Shia LaBeouf are being considered to play founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and that David Fincher, the director of the lugubrious Brad Pitt snoozer, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” is “attached” to the movie version.

Even better: “West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin will pen it and actor Kevin Spacey will produce the Columbia Pictures film, which will be called “The Social Network.”

Well, Hollywood sure came up with an original title!

It certainly does not signal the juiciness of the proposal for the book–which did manage to leak out last year–with a lot of tale tales in it that seem to have pretty much tracked on its oddly purple subtitle of “The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal.”

The cover–which you can see on the book’s Facebook page (the delicious gall of Mezrich!)–features a spilled martini glass and a red bra flung nearby.

Martinis? Red bras? Sex? Facebook? Really?

Obviously, Mezrich has not actually met Zuckerberg, who is a very nice geekish young man, but who has approximately the sex appeal of a rack of Facebook servers.

Powerful yes! Spockish? Yes! Sexy? Um, no, no, no.

I will not even begin to parse the red bra thing, although I am attributing the martinis to stylish former COO (and now MySpace CEO) Owen Van Natta.

But, apparently, the sex part seems to have to do with Zuckerberg starting the company with others while an undergrad at Harvard University, as a scheme to meet some ladies.

I would say there are easier ways to attract the womenfolk–not that I could give tips or anything–but whatever!

Thus, since I cannot get my mitts on the book (yet!), here’s my list of 10 completely made-up, utterly fabricated, just-call-me-Jayson-Blair things that should be in the book.

10.) Facebook was actually going to be called OnlyPrettyLadyFacebook, but cooler heads prevailed.

9.) The Wall? A clever plot by Zuckerberg to build his online service on a fascist construct, touting his hegemony over all he surveyed.

Wait, that actually happened, and now some Russians are even investors.

Long live the Zuckrepublic of Palo Alto!

8.) Reason for stealing, oops, borrowing, oops again, completely separately developing an exact replica of ConnectU social network at Harvard:

The Olympically muscle-headed Winklevoss twins used to beat up the brainy Zuckerberg on his way back to the dorm, prompting a “Revenge of the Nerds” plot line.

7.) Facebook’s Beacon advertising? All Randi Zuckerberg’s idea, so she could find out what she was getting for her birthday from her billionaire-on-paper brother.

6.) Zuckerberg’s famous flip-flops were made in China under dubious working conditions. Wait, that’s true too.

5.) The 20-something Zuckerberg is actually 93 years old, a real-life version of Benjamin Button, which would explain the social awkwardness and staring-into-space-sometimes thing.

4.) The no-breast-feeding-pictures controversy pretty much proves no one is interested in bras or, more precisely, what goes in them at Facebook.

3.) COO Sheryl Sandberg is a cyborg sent to Facebook from Google for purposes of infiltration. She and her crafty sidekick, Elliott Schrage, will become self-aware in 2012 and hunt down Zuckerberg in a thrilling chase that will also become a movie.

2.) The sex, drugs and rock-and-roll stuff actually all took place at MySpace, which really pisses off certifiably dashing co-Founders Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson because, once again, Zuckerberg stole their mojo!

1.) This work of fiction, oops, “fact”-ion, oops again, nonfiction, is probably not going to sell many copies because it will mysteriously be uploaded in its entirety by a widget that will distribute it free to Facebook’s 200 million plus users while simultaneously SuperDuperPoking Mezrich, by throwing real sheep at him.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Ben.

(By the way, here is an extra for you: The $15 billion valuation for Facebook, along with all the other Web 2.0 ones? Totally true. Just ask any VC.)

And, in case anyone was wondering what the real Facebook looks like, here is a recent video tour I did of its new HQ in Palo Alto, Calif.:

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Although its advertising business is tanking this quarter and its merger deal with Yahoo remains dormant, AOL is focusing on one of the brighter spots in its business: the popularity of its content sites.

Today, the Time Warner (TWX) unit will announce the expansion of its publishing unit, which it is curiously called MediaGlow.

A deep dive into content, especially when the advertising market is also in a sharp downtown, is an interesting move, to be sure, although it makes sense for AOL to double down in the areas it excels in.

In a press release obtained by Boomtown, which will be released later today (but you can see below), AOL said it would develop over 30 new sites in 2009, employing the low cost, niche-focused model that has worked well at many of its 75 existing sites.

AOL’s content sites, which are typically the No. 2-ranked in a variety of categories to those at Yahoo (YHOO), have grown significantly in recent years, as the company has become more Web-focused.

AOL claims it has 70 million unique monthly visitors for its content sites, with page views up 40 percent year-over-year.

AOL content czar Bill Wilson–with a spanking new title of President of MediaGlow–will lead the publishing effort, which will include new “state-of-the-art” studios in New York and Los Angeles.

That essentially means several hundred content-focused employees with a whole army of free-lancers, to create both original and aggregated content.

AOL is calling MediaGlow the third leg of its business model, with its People Networks (communications and social assets) and Platform-A (advertising) as its other two.

Here’s the full press release on the move:

AOL ANNOUNCES EXPANSION OF PUBLISHING UNIT WITH THE CREATION OF MEDIAGLOW

Plans Include the Development of Over 30 New Sites in 2009

State-of-the-Art MediaGlow Studios Launches in NYC and LA

Bill Wilson to Lead New Global Publishing Push

NEW YORK, NY, January 12, 2009–After a year of strong growth for its programming efforts, AOL announced today a series of significant developments that will dramatically expand, reposition and monetize its digital publishing business in 2009. Over the past year, AOL’s programming unit has seen page views climb 40% year-over-year, engagement increase 20% year-over-year and its audience grow to 70 million unduplicated users.* Anchoring today’s announcement is the creation of a new AOL business unit, MediaGlow, which will centralize AOL’s entire publishing efforts, with the goal of greatly expanding the unit’s global reach in the coming year.

Today’s announcement also completes AOL’s transformation to an advertising supported business. Over the past 18 months AOL has announced the formation of Platform-A, the largest domestic digital advertising platform, which uniquely maximizes online outreach for advertisers, as well as the creation of People Networks, the company’s social media unit, which leverages the power of community properties such as Bebo, AIM and ICQ to reach an audience of more than 92 million unduplicated users worldwide.* MediaGlow and its publishing assets will now join Platform-A and People Networks as the third core business for AOL.
 
“Our vision was to rebuild AOL into three core businesses–publishing, advertising and social media. With the launch of MediaGlow, we have completed our goal in less than 18 months,” said Randy Falco, Chairman and CEO of AOL. “AOL now efficiently delivers the most relevant and engaging content and is able to uniquely maximize display advertising opportunities for advertisers and publishers across the Web. MediaGlow provides us with the ability to extend our publishing success and puts AOL in a very strong position for the future.”

“Gone are the days when one general portal or social networking site addressed the needs of all consumers. Today’s fragmented online environment requires programming that targets people’s passion points at scale across a range of unique sites,” said Ron Grant, AOL’s President and COO. “Make no mistake, AOL has become a true digital content company. Over the past year, we have mastered the art of producing high-quality vertical and niche programming at scale. Now by centralizing and investing in this infrastructure, we will ensure that we are maximizing our potential for monetization.”

The creation of MediaGlow comes on the heels of a highly successful 2008 for AOL’s publishing unit, which has been led by Bill Wilson, Executive Vice President of Programming for AOL. Wilson will now lead MediaGlow as President of the new business unit, directing not only the publishing unit, but a new infrastructure that will include global outreach and AOL’s vast array of commerce-related sites.

Under Wilson’s leadership, AOL rebuilt its flagship portal, AOL.com, and its entire network of vertical sites, while at the same time rapidly developing and launching more than a dozen new targeted content sites in the past year. In addition, during this short time period, the Programming team has built a vast infrastructure of world class talent, including editors, content creators and industry experts.

This effort has brought a significant new audience to AOL’s slate of Web brands and has driven record-setting engagement metrics. In 2008, unique visitors to AOL’s programming content sites grew to 70 million unduplicated users, with page views climbing 40% year-over-year and engagement growing 20% year-over-year. In addition, the influx of new consumers and deeper audience engagement levels provided AOL with double-digit increases in vertical content advertising revenue year-over-year in Q3 2008, and has brought in new advertisers such as Chili’s, Wal-Mart, Schick, Old Spice and Motorola.

“2008 has been a truly historic year for AOL Programming because we became brand builders,” said Bill Wilson, President of MediaGlow. “Few people outside of AOL would have believed a year ago that our sites would now be in the top positions in nearly every important programming category, but in a very short time we have created a successful, nimble and valuable business property for AOL. From our reinvented AOL.com to our vertical content sites, we are creating experiences that successfully reach key demographics and provide unique, relevant and valuable content to consumers and solutions for advertisers. As an ad-supported company, this is a huge asset. We are very excited to push our efforts to a whole new level with the establishment of MediaGlow and are now in a position to take our successful formula global.”

In conjunction with today’s announcement, AOL announced two important publishing developments:

MediaGlow will continue its aggressive momentum in the development of the new AOL.com, and its vertical Web sites focused on passion points, with the goal of creating over 30 editorially curated sites in 2009. A sample of specific categories includes: expanding AOL News and AOL Sports into a variety of newly created niche-oriented news and sports sites; building on the success of its highly successful Asylum site with new, male–oriented, 18-34 year old targeted brands; creating new sites focused on areas such as Reality Television, Soap Operas, Horror Films, Jazz and Heavy Metal; and launching a new pop culture site aimed at kids.

In addition to these newly curated sites, MediaGlow will also maximize the technology of acquired companies Relegence and Sphere and begin an unprecedented effort to build thousands of medium and long-tail focused automated sites in 2009 and 2010, which will efficiently continue AOL’s growth position in publishing.

MediaGlow will add to its infrastructure two state-of-the-art studios, located in AOL Headquarters in New York City and its offices in Los Angeles. MediaGlow Studios will provide new video production capabilities from hi-def video to complete editing and encoding. The studios will also be used to shoot original video productions that will now be distributed globally. Productions to be developed and produced through the MediaGlow Studios include original programming developed by AOL–Moviefone’s Unscripted, AOL Music’s Sessions, AOL Living’s Trade Secrets branded entertainment shows, Spinner’s The Interface and AOL Television’s Outside the Box.

The following lists AOL’s publishing success, based on the November comScore Media Metrix data:**

#1 Country Music Site: TheBoot
#1 Hip-Hop Music: The BoomBox
#1 Men: Asylum
#1 Style: StyleList
#1 Women’s Blogs: Lemondrop
#1 African American: BlackVoices
#1 Music: AOL Music
#1 Retail Tickets: Moviefone.com
#1 Television: AOL Television
#2 Horoscopes: AOL Horoscopes
#2 Latino: AOL Latino
#2 Business- News/Research: AOL Money & Finance
#2 Entertainment-News: TMZ
#2 E-mail: AOL E-mail
#3: Movies: Moviefone.com
#3 Real Estate: AOL Real Estate
#3 Health: AOL Health
#4 News: AOL News
#4 Technology: AOL Tech
#4 Women’s: AOL Living
#5 Search: AOL Search Network
#5 Weather: AOL Weather
#5 Home: AOL Home
 
* Based on a custom pull of November 2008 comScore Media Metrix data. (Note: the People Networks unduplicated reach figure excludes AIM Mail.)
** Categories for Asylum, BlackVoices, Horoscopes, Latino, Lemondrop, TheBoomBox, TheBoot and StyleList have been custom built by AOL.

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