Out with the old (Tina Wells laments the negative feeding frenzy around young Hollywood and tells marketers to look to emerging talent for celeb-replacements. I have a feeling she won't be a fan of Starvstar, "a 'fantasy sports meets celebrity scandal' online game" being launched Wednesday by the newly funded ($9 million) Worldwide Biggies. Plus the L.A. Times, reg. required, looks at how athletes are connecting to the "MySpace generation" and lists their blogs) (MediaPost, reg. required) (New York Post)

- Teens talk about brands... (a lot. And guess which brand they talk about most? The iPod, of course. I finally turned in my next BizWeek Viewpoint on Apple. Hopefully it will run in the next week or two) (BrandWeek)

- Coming soon to your local YMCA (a "High School Musical 2" party. It seems that marketing at libraries and YMCAs are safer than promoting a squeaky clean tween tv show on ugc sites) (AdAge.com, reg. required)

- TechCrunch charts virtual worlds (I think they label some of these sites "younger teens" incorrectly. See my post on this for parents at Totally Wired. Plus here's an interesting take on whether Club Penguin sold out when it sold to Disney) (GigaOm)

- R.I.P. lonelygirl15 (and hello "Gossip Girl" a week early) (New York Times, reg. required) (Variety)

- Most bizarre application of ugc ever (design your own border fence)

- Bullying sucks (especially for boys) (Reuters)

- News 21 (the final projects from the top J-schools best and brightest. Did they reinvent news for younger viewers or just create top notch multi-media journalism) (Boing Boing)

Posted by anastasia