As pioneering mega-sites like YouTube and MySpace have become increasingly regulated, young people are seeking out competitors with few or no limits on content, reports the New York Times. This unfiltered frontier includes sites such as Stickam.com, a social-networking start-up that allows users to stream live webcasts without the oversight associated with the site's larger competitors. "People are going to go where the content is," says Robin Bechtel, vice president for new media at Warner Brothers Records, which opened a page on Stickam for two of its artists. "If Stickam has celebrities and is entertaining, they will go there."

The former alt-weekly writer and three-time author's latest book details his efforts to be the hippest father around, according to a profile in the Los Angeles Times. "In some ways this could be a parody of a whiny Gen-X dad, you know?" says Pollack. "In some ways I am a parody of a whiny Gen-X dad." The comic memoir -- which deals with Pollack's midlife identity crisis and his determination to raise his son with irony -- will be published this month by Pantheon Books.

National advertising and classifieds will be "particularly hard hit," predicts Mediaweek. "The retailer is under tremendous stress, and what you're seeing is [advertising] going to online venues," explains newspaper economist Miles Groves.

The number of green-oriented ad agencies has spiked in the last few years, reports the International Herald Tribune. The new agencies are netting accounts ranging from non-profit foundations -- their traditional clients -- to businesses eager to improve their image with an increasingly environmentally minded public. "The nonprofits are realizing that it takes money to create a brand, and the corporations are finally getting that their customers really care about green," says a founder of one of the eco upstarts.

Socially responsible consumerism and the increasing influence of the Web in the physical world are among the trends foreseen by ad executives in a New Year's round-up in the New York Times. Execs quoted in the article also expect to see more user-generated advertising in the new year. "Consumers are demanding and getting a seat at the table and defining what the brand experience is about," one adman tells the Times.

Online advertising rates continue their northward march with few signs of letting up anytime soon, reports the New York Times. With online advertising revenues expected to grow by 31 percent to $16.4 billion this year, rates for the front pages of some popular MSN sections rose tenfold in the last two years, according to an MSN executive. But one Internet retailer compares the heated market to the dot-com era. "In 1999 it was a rush of venture money that did it. Today you've got a rush of corporate money," says Mark Vadon, of Blue Nile.com.