Picton was the managing editor of News Corp.‘s iPad-only title. Updated: Picton’s role was a temporary one, helping launch the title; he left four months ago. Another managing editor, Jim Gaines, recently left for Thomson Reuters.

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Picton’s U.S. stint may prove useful to Mail Online, which is trying to build its U.S. audience using its mass-market news, celeb pics and gossip.

It recently opened a New York office to follow the Los Angeles office it opened in May 2010, and has been hiring both editorial and commercial staff.

But Picton will be UK-based. Martin Clarke is Mail Online publisher.

Picton rejoined The Sun in 2000 as head of features after stints at the News Of The World, Sunday People and Heat magazine. He had been online editor for the last 10 years, during which Sun Bingo became one of the site’s big revenue generators, before leaving to translate his experience on a national mass-market daily to… The Daily.