The unit’s spokesperson told us: “Tim is in the middle of a 100-Day process where he is doing deep dives on all aspects of the business as well as listening to employees around the globe. So far, he’s met with over half of AOL’s employees. And while Tim and the leadership team are making progress on the new strategy, we have not announced that new strategy yet. Bebo, AIM, ICQ and the other People Networks properties will all be addressed when the new strategy is announced and Joanna will continue to serve as an advisor to the company working with our acquisitions and new ventures.”

While AOL’s $850 million Bebo price tag was certainly eye-popping, Shields herself - a former Google (NSDQ: GOOG) EMEA managing director - has been rated highly throughout, and charming - it has sometimes appeared that AOL bought not Bebo but Shields.  If the logic of splashing that much on a European social net popular mainly with teens (and hence little monetisation potential) was iffy, then AOL’s wider mission - tapping Bebo to thread social media throughout its portfolio - at least seemed plausible. Much of the new unit’s work has involved linking AOL, AIM and ICQ accounts; Shields divided her time between New York and London. It led the acquisition of FriendFeed rival Socialthing, using it to build its parent a “social inbox” with which users could access off-site services on Bebo and AOL. Rumours surfaced - each strongly denied - that AOL was considering quickly off-loading Bebo. They will now be rekindled if People Networks gets restructured.