Conde Nast is pitching advertisers a “top-secret” teen site called Flip (for now) that mixes social media tools and e-commerce to fuel the ambition of teen girls, according to AdAge. Plans sound anything but firm—beta testing has been postponed from fall to December—but the gist of it centers on giving teen girls a place to be creative, share ideas and learn how to capitalize on that creativity by creating collages, cards and mobile content. They would create galleries called “flipbooks” using tools from “Flip’s Media Studio,” including images from Conde Nast’s Teen Vogue, Style.com, Lucky and Glamor.
As AdAge frames it, this would be the latest test of the ability to create a thriving publication online without a print launch pad. True but it goes beyond that. Can Conde Nast, which has been so good at matching demographics with ideas for print, create an online place appealing enough to catch and keep teen girls attention among so much competition? Some of what’s being described sounds more appropriate for tweens so fine tuning will be vital. Also, not sure what Conde Nast would consider successful.  Forget comparisons to MySpace. TeenPeople.com had 495,000 uniques in June while CosmoGirl.com had an estimated 230,000, according Nielsen/Net-Ratings via AdAge. Traffic to ElleGirl.com and TeenVogue.com wasn’t high enough to meet Nielsen’s requirements.