According to BusinessWeek, (reg. required) Jess's ex is dipping a big toe into the already crowded social networking for teens space. I just got another email from some at another new site called Bebo.com yesterday. He is helping launch a new "safer" site for tweens called Yfly.com with his friend A.J. Discala and entrepreneur Drew Levin. BizWeek's intrepid "Y" beat reporter Jessi Hempel says:

"His name [Lachey] is sure to generate buzz. But it's possible a safety-oriented site will come off like your mom's after-prom party. Cool is hard to manufacture, even for a heartthrob."

The funny (or not so depending on how you look at it) fact I didn't realize was that Nick's name is often used by online predators trying to meet teen girls. Ew.

At the same time, the media continues to cover the big players. The New York Times, reg. required, gave Facebook some ink in an article that began with a funny story about how college kids turned the tables on police who used the site to bust a party where underaged students were drinking. From the article:

"Once again they used the site, which is visited by more than 80 percent of the student body, to chat up a beer blast. But this time, when the campus police showed up, they found 40 students and a table of cake and cookies, all decorated with the word 'beer.' 'We even set up a cake-pong table,' a twist on the beer-pong drinking game, he says. 'The look on the faces of the cops was priceless.' As the coup de grâce, he posted photographs of the party on Facebook, including a portrait of one nonplussed officer."

Classic.

Posted by anastasia