FLOP.COM Still unsure how to capture this burgeoning Web 2.0 audience, Conde Nast stuck its tail between its legs in revamping the tactics of social scrapbooking site Flip.com. With audience way down, the better-than-bourgeois magazine publisher is turning the site into a web application that can be embedded into MySpace and Facebook profiles. [CNet]

Here are the facts: The Hills is fake. It's possible that Heidi and Spencer have never even seen each other naked. Once Lauren grew out of her teenage insecurities, she became more boring than white window treatments. The west coast “office” of Teen Vogue is basically a set.

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At nearly 33 years old (or, as it's pronounced in Hollywood, "middle aged") actress Eva Longoria's publicist has reportedly ordered her Jurassic client to adhere to a daily beauty and makeup regimen, and to "never, ever leave the house—not even to pick up a carton of milk from the local supermarket—without at least spending a minimum of 2-3 hours in the makeup chair."

For more on "Celebrities, who—like regular people—look less attractive without makeup" and other groundbreaking developments be sure to check out Flip.com, the dimwitted brainchild of Conde Nast.

We love our girls at WWD's Memo Pad. We see them trawling the party circuit while we sit by the bar, sipping Moet, and expect stories to come to us. So it's heartbreaking to see what appears to be a pretty transparent plant in this morning's column: That Conde Nast's Flip.com is in good shape.

'Cause we all know it isn't.

Despite the rosy picture – Flip.com's March readership came in at 288k unique visitors, up from 183k at February's launch – it's no secret Conde brass isn't pleased with the site. Sure, the teen girl social networking-slash-scrapbooking site might beat CosmoGIRL and Teen Vogue's web properties, but if you ever thought execs at 4 Times Square will let CondeNet prez Sarah Chubb get away with measuring her success by whether she's able to squeak out a tiny lead, you're mistaken.

Conde Nast's latest attempt to spell "Internet" arrives today with the (beta) launch of Flip.com, its MySpace-meets-Flickr attempt at selling tweens on skinny jeans and $1,200 handbags.

Welcome to the neighborhood, Flip. Don't let anybody tell you that you're ugly. You're just special. Love your braces. You cow.

(Full release after the jump.)

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Although Flip.com, CondeNet's answer to MySpace, doesn't officially debut until February 6, that hasn't stopped approximately 10,000 teenage girls from already pre-registering.

The site, which features a combination networking/artsy-fartsy scrapbook vibe looks to have a strong following among preliminary users, and CondeNet editors are already pleased—and surprised—by their early success:

Since beta began on Dec. 27, about 1,500 "flip books" have been created, with about half of them labeled as private and half set to public viewing. But unlike MySpace, the personalized flip books are more than just photo albums of the prom or last night's bender. The artistic handiwork of the users — who were invited into the site during its beta stage from Teen Vogue's It Girls network and via e-mail lists from YM.com and Style.com, among others — easily could be used in portfolios to enter design schools or even as commercials themselves. "We're surprised by the level of ambition," said Pallot.

All of which, of course, is bad news for the 'Toos and Elizabeth Spiers, who are both looking to corner the tween girl (a.k.a. "underage hotties") market with their respective web ventures.

Meanwhile, MySpace execs have announced they are currently less concerned with attracting beautiful, impressionable girls to their site, and more focused on devising means by which to block those nubile young teens from the much larger proliferation of really creepy old guys.

Conde Nast's new web venture Flip – basically, MySpace for young girls hoping one day to be bestowed the honor of dying from anorexia – is said to be pocketing $2 million in ad revenue, before the site even launches. (Oh Radar, if only you had their sales planners.)

Part of the gimmick for the half dozen launch sponsors is the chance for viral, non-branded and non-standard spots that users will be able to incorporate into their "flip books," or photo profiles. That is, Conde is grooming a whole new set of girls to blur the lines between what's paid for and what's not, so they'll be up to speed by the time they're generating back problems by carrying Vogue.

What’s groundbreaking for these sponsors is that the primary ad-units on Flip are nonbranded digital images that members can use however they’d like to populate their “Flip books”—which are sort of mini photo albums/diaries/digital scrapbooks that a given user creates within her profile. For example, retailer Nordstrom is supplying images of models wearing its apparel that girls can paste in their Flip books, which can only be identified as Nordstrom-wear if users click on them. Johnson & Johnson’s Clean & Clear is taking it a step further by simply providing word-play icons—such as “FRESH”—while displaying neither a logo nor its products. Even riskier for advertisers: Girls can use a virtual doodling tool to write on their pages and say whatever they want about these brands.

They're even free to draw cum dots around their lips, coke dots around their noses, and pee dots around their crotches. Ahhh, user-generated content.

(Image via)