Teen.com Stays Hip; Alloy.com Keeps Its Shine

Two venerable teenage “girl” sites, Teen.com and Alloy.com, have found ways to stay current and viable with a fickle audience.

Teen.com

One look at the home page of Teen.com (https://www.teen.com) tells the visitor this is a well-organized site loaded with content. Teen.com is geared toward teenage girls, with columns and features covering books, music, TV, movies, dating, beauty, fashion, games, news and college information.

Visitors can post and receive advice on a litany of teen topics in the Boards section as well as discuss news, reviews, entertainment and politics. Teen.com aims to maintain an age-appropriate and non-explicit site. But teenagers can be frank, so the target age group of 13 to 19 is recommended here and in the Chat area.

The site offers a free personal e-mail address and daily and weekly e-zines.

Alloy.com

Alloy.com bills itself as “the destination and brand teens turn to for the latest teen trends.” It makes every effort to keep the “hip” factor at a sizzle with celebrity gossip, quizzes, contests and shopping promotions.

Launched in 1996, the site (https://www.alloy.com) targets a mostly female audience of 13- to 19-year-olds and has successfully expanded into offline venues with Alloy Girl magazine, book publishing and clothing catalogs for girls and boys. Alloy’s business is split between online and offline vehicles. All this is good news for the Alloy faithful who can’t seem to get enough of what’s hot.

Content on Alloy is updated several times daily. The Today section offers horoscopes, news, advice, gossip and “lovescopes,” a weekly “crush” forecast.

*

Karen Jones is a freelance writer specializing in children’s interactive media.