In a week, the entire advertising sales staff of MySpace will gather at a swanky new seaside resort about 20 miles south of Los Angeles to get a first glimpse of the fresh direction the company is preparing to take under its new management.

The beleaguered social networking site has been in the midst of an effort to reinvigorate its image, spur innovation in its product and–most of all–pull itself out of a too-long slump, even as longtime rival Facebook has seen explosive growth.

On the possible agenda: A new strategy aimed at music and entertainment; a new look; and, perhaps, a new boss for the ad sales team.

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Let’s all agree first to blame owner Condé Nast for deciding to shutter Gourmet–the elegant and iconic magazine, which has been around since 1941, after the November issue.

While circulation remained steady at Gourmet at just under one million monthly paying subscribers, Condé Nast Chief Executive Officer Chuck Townsend pointed to a fall-off in advertising spending by luxury brands that result in a money-losing mess.

But some are blaming a movement of readers to the Web. Is it true?

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Four years ago, the movie, “Snakes on a Plane,” became a genuine Internet phenom well before the movie was in theaters.

Which, in the end, only showed that online buzz had negligible impact on the viewing public, given that the movie’s box office turned out to be tepid at best.

But will another small film, about a demon-plagued couple with an infrared-equipped videocamera, called “Paranormal Activity,” prove that the chatter of Facebook and Twitter has more legs today?

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Here’s one of the many funny videos from this week’s “Saturday Night Live” 35th season opener, hosted by “Transformers” starlet Megan Fox.

Of course, the video features her in a spoof of the silly action movie, although this one is much more entertaining than the real thing.

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Former Bebo CEO Joanna Shields and Shine Group Chairman and CEO Elisabeth Murdoch have formed a content start-up to produce across media platforms, both online and offline, with a focus on social engagement, according to sources.

The new venture, which does not have a name, is being financially backed by both Shine and Shields.

Based in London, it will invest, develop and partner to create a variety of content offerings that also incorporate interactive and social networking elements.

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BoomTown is a major fan of comic Kathy Griffin, so here’s a good one by her from last week, in which she mocks Kate and Jon Gosselin (neither of whom seems to need any help looking like fools).

Her “Kate Is Enough” video–which she did for “Jimmy Kimmel Live”–is very funny, mostly due to the brilliant casting of former Trekkie George Takei as Jon.

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Yahoo is set to unveil a major marketing campaign to reset advertiser and consumer perception of the long-troubled company during Advertising Week in New York, which starts a week from tomorrow.

According to numerous sources BoomTown has spoken to about the campaign, Yahoo is–at least with advertisers–going to focus on stressing the size and scale of the Internet giant. With consumers, the Internet giant will push the idea of being a key hub on the Web.

The details of the plan will be made public Tuesday, Sept. 22, at a press conference with senior Yahoo execs, including CEO Carol Bartz.

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Time Inc.’s Fortune magazine–which never met a list it did not like to make–had a solid group of women tech types on its “50 Most Powerful Women 2009” roster, the annual survey that it posted yesterday.

Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz made the Top Ten this year, clocking in at No. 8, along with a lot of other tech-savvy women in Silicon Valley and elsewhere.

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Last night, “The News Hour With Jim Lehrer” aired a piece on “how technology companies are innovating amid the recession by designing popular new smart phone applications.”

BoomTown was to talk about how perhaps not all of the 65,000 apps being created by legions of third-party developers for the Apple iPhone will result in gold, diamonds and unicorns raining down on entrepreneurs.

Oddly enough, I somehow went all Jules Verne at the end and started talking about screens on coffee tables, so I am obviously just as bad.

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This week, in its annual survey of consumer technology attitudes and adoption, titled “The State of Consumers and Technology,” Forrester Research found that…wait for it, wait for it…the kids love the Internet!

As for the olds–they like their traditional media stories and they’re sticking to them.

It’s only at the Weather Channel where online and offline media live together under blue skies.

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Suddenly, it seems the AMC series about a 1960s advertising agency in New York, “Mad Men,” is having its “Sopranos” moment–with its stars all over the media, its fans more obsessive than ever, its ratings doubled in its third season and a renewal for a fourth season just today.

So, of course, there are also spoofs galore online too, some pretty elaborate, such as this one with a gender switcheroo. Fascinatingly, it still works.

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Despite the challenges the music gaming industry has been facing of late–such as sales dropping, yipes, almost 50 percent in the U.S. this year–the top companies in the field are still churning out new products like it’s nobody’s business.

Case in point is a spate of new products from the Guitar Hero division of Activision Blizzard, which is coming out this fall with three separate major launches, starting tomorrow with the GH5 and including the hip-hop flavored DJ Hero in late October.

Here’s BoomTown’s sneak peek from GH’s HQ in Silicon Valley.

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Here’s a new video that has been making the rounds recently featuring “Roller Babies,” which is essentially a computer-generated bunch of babies on skates doing a rap number.

It’s a commercial for Evian Water, but BoomTown laughs every time I look at it anyway–probably because it reminds me of the most famous of all viral videos on the Internet: The Dancing Baby of 1997.

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Last night, onstage at Lincoln Center in Manhattan, my most excellent partner, Walt Mossberg, interviewed well-known techno musician Moby about music and entertainment in the digital age.

The wide-ranging talk was part of an ongoing cultural festival series organized by The Wall Street Journal, called Summer Scoops Live.

Here are some video clips of the event and more.

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Oh, who doesn’t just love, love, love the two latest viral videos to hit the Web–“United Breaks Guitars” and the joyful wedding dance of Minnesotans Jill and Kevin? Combined, they have more than 20 million views on YouTube.

While that’s all well and good, like a lot of these kinds of viral phenoms, neither is likely to make much money and become more than watercooler wonders.

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