Now Hot on the Web—Teens!

CURRENTLY ONLINE Young folks

Hearst, hoping to circumvent the pesky problem of teen-hungry pervs on social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, has gone and bought a couple of online teen hangouts of its own, Mediaweek reports. It snatched up eCrush.com, which provides users a way to see if someone has a crush on them, and eSpin.com, "a social networking site for Gen Y." That's in addition to MyPromShopper.com, "a prom planning Web site that draws on the editorial of CosmoGirl, Seventeen, and quarterly Teen."

Think this is lowering the bar? Would it seem that way if you knew more than half of U.S. teens are using social networking sites? Now who's being childish?