Downloads:

Kids Get Gossiping with Spleak-Hearst Deal

Teens, those mavens of social networking and gossip, will have a new tool at their disposal thanks to a deal between Hearst Magazines Digital Media and Spleak Media Network.

CelebSpleak is an application for instant messaging platforms and social media sites with 100,000 active daily users after less than a year in existence. It allows users to rate and create gossip about celebrities. It is available for AOL’s IM, MSN Messenger, MySpace, Facebook and other platforms, writes Adweek. Hearst will create and distribute “tattles,” that is, bits of content from its magazines, including CosmoGirl, Seventeen and Teen.

As editorial is spread among a user’s group of friends, they can comment or supply their own gossip items.

“Spleak’s opinionated, gossip-with-attitude ‘Tattles’ are a great fit for our media-savvy core teen audience. Teens consume content on their terms and Spleak’s omnipresence online helps meet those needs,” says Amy Gibby, president of Hearst-owned social site eSPIN.com.

“There’s great value in both UGC and professional, editorial content. Most of the time the two end up in conflict with one another, but Spleak has found the right way to combine the best of both worlds,” says Morrie Eisenberg, CEO of Spleak Media Network.

Hearst is dedicated to using Web 2.0 tools to encourage user participation. In March, Hearst launched widgets for its TheDailyGreen.com and Seventeen magazine websites. The widgets allow users to embed them into social networks like Facebook and My Space, aggregators like iGoogle, NetVibes and Windows Live, and blog platforms like Blogger and TypePad. They include referral links back to Hearst Magazines Digital Media websites as well as advertising units.