While she had almost nothing to do with the Internet, the Web still has a lot to do with Farrah Fawcett, especially today after the iconic Hollywood actress and model died after a long and well-documented battle with cancer.

Still, the massive online reaction to a more sudden and unexpected celebrity death yesterday–pop legend Michael Jackson, who was 50–pretty much drowned out Fawcett’s passing at 62 years old.

That’s too bad, since she was a genuine cultural phenom–from her famous poster to her feathered hairstyle to her always glamorous declarations of “Freeze!” on the television show, “Charlie’s Angels.”

Thus, here’s my favorite of the many tributes to Fawcett from the Web, to remember her by:

What’s one of the ways you might attract a lot of attention online?

Here’s one possible equation: Celebrity + Mom + Tips Galore.

That’s the formula behind a new site relaunching today called Modern Mom, which is backed by “Dancing With the Stars” winner Brooke Burke and partner Lisa Rosenblatt, wading into what the pair hopes will be a lucrative market.

In an unusual twist, they have bought an existing site, redesigned it and then turbocharged it using both original content and stuff pulled from Demand Media (which was founded by Rosenblatt’s husband, Richard Rosenblatt).

It’s an interesting effort to watch in online publishing, to see if the pair can attract both an audience and advertisers without a big brand name in the mother space and by leveraging Burke’s online and offline popularity.

She now has, for example, 562,522 followers on Twitter alone, a huge fan group on Facebook and is an active social networker.

Whether that can be turned into a real business is a good question.

“I think I am passionate about this and want it to be organic,” said Burke, who noted that she and Rosenblatt have seven kids between them. “There are a lot of places for moms to go online, but they tend to cut up the experience, while we’re focusing on information and tools from pregnancy to the teen space, since being a mother does not stop at any one point.”

Rosenblatt, who said that the effort has been backed by several million dollars in angel investment, added that the key was trying not to overwhelm readers with content that was not relevant.

“We wanted to be a place for people to feel involved easily, so they could feel comfortable,” she said. “We’re the audience for what we are offering, so we think we know what people want.”

That means, no surprise, nothing too heavy–with lots of tips, buying suggestions, health and beauty, food and home, videos, blogs, as well as an area focused on celeb parents, called Mommywood.

Of all the evergreens online, celebs are almost always a hit (witness the big wet kiss the New York Times recently bestowed on Wonderwall, which BoomTown wrote about a while back), and so are sites aimed at mothers.

Some of the many include BabyCenter, iVillage, Momlogic and Mommy Track’d, among others. Still, the packed category has a lot of potential, given it’s often an advertising-friendly environment.

Burke and Rosenblatt said Modern Mom already had such relationships and that they would be combined with Burke’s endorsements and her existing e-commerce business, called Baboosh Baby.

Here’s a screenshot of Modern Mom’s new homepage (click on it to make it larger), as well as a welcome video from Burke:

Dear Mark Cuban:

Apparently, Steve Wozniak, the ever-wackier-as-the-years-go-by co-founder of Apple, is taking up your geek banner on “Dancing With the Stars” and is a contestant on the eighth outing for the popular celebrity hoofing show.

He is among 13 “stars” who will start up their samba-and-tango death match on March 9 on ABC.

While you did not make it to the heavens of dancedom, despite your brilliant-in-hindsight “I Dream of Jeannie” set, Woz actually could become the Cloris Leachman favorite this time out and last into the later rounds.

While Denise Richards will without a doubt be all sharp elbows, there is some obnoxious dude named Steve-O (there is only one Steve and he uses a J) and Wozniak should never turn his back on Lil’ Kim, it is quite possible the designer of the Apple (AAPL) I and II could take home the trophy. One can dream, at least.

Plus, Woz will be plowing the road for BoomTown’s No. 1 pick for next season: Yahoo (YHOO) co-founder and former CEO Jerry Yang! While he clearly needs some work, Yang does have some time free now.

In fact, here is a video, below, taken at Yahoo last year, with Yang boogying at the 1:30 mark:

And here are some of Cuban’s mambo moves, looking slick with no sleeves, as the “bouncing bionic billionaire”:

In an interesting and innovative move compared to what has typically been less-than-hip online programming over the years, Microsoft’s MSN service is debuting a slick new celebrity site called Wonderwall today–created, designed and produced by a Hollywood company run by former Yahoo media chief and well-known television exec Lloyd Braun.

Using an unusual horizontal design with a scrolling “wall,” a plethora of pictures and a deeply visual sensibility, it’s definitely a laudable risk for Microsoft as the company seeks to continue to push itself into the online content business, despite a lackluster record.

The site, by BermanBraun Interactive, which is being launched right before the Grammy Awards, will aggregate content from a variety of partners, but also use a small staff of editors to differentiate it and give it “voice.” BermanBraun will operate Wonderwall for MSN.

Last week, in yet another sign that it is upping the content ante at MSN, Microsoft hired Yahoo’s most recent media head Scott Moore, who used to work at Microsoft (MSFT).

“We are investing more than ever in content,” said MSN GM Rob Bennett. “With Wonderwall, we are creating an offering to attract and retain new audiences, using content that is already at the core of MSN.”

But unlike other MSN sites, there is more subtle MSN branding on Wonderwall, although Microsoft’s search will be an important part of the site. MSN will promote Wonderwall across the service and will also give it an external marketing push.

To make money, Microsoft and BermanBraun are jointly selling the advertising for Wonderwall, which also has a partnership with MediaVest, to bring major brands to the site.

One obstacle is the huge amount of competition in the Internet space, from AOL-backed TMZ to Perez Hilton to omg! from Yahoo (YHOO), which is currently the most-trafficked celebrity site (and, ironically, was pushed through Yahoo by Braun and Moore).

But the interest in this pop culture category is obvious–celeb-focused online programming has grown strongly.

Celeb news-obsessed BoomTown accounts for much of that traffic (How much do we love following the hijinks of Britney? Much!).

So, I hightailed it to the Santa Monica offices of BermanBraun yesterday to have a look-see at Wonderwall and do some video interviews.

Overall, I was struck by the site’s arresting visual design, particularly the easily interactive wall, which has what I can only call an “iPhone” feel combined with a flipping-through-a-magazine tone (see above; click on image to make it larger).

With more touchscreen technology moving to personal computers, you can easily see Wonderwall being manipulated by hand.

And it makes great use of linking out, another plus, without excessively pointing to only Microsoft sites.

One problem: No true ability for users to interact on Wonderwall, via comments or other social-networking tools, which Braun said are coming soon, along with videos being able to be played in the main wall.

But overall, it raises the stakes in the celeb market and gives users a new interface without straying too far.

Here’s my video interview with Braun, along with another below it with his partner, former Fox and Paramount exec Gail Berman, and also Wonderwall’s top creators–all talking about Wonderwall.

(And, as an added bonus at the bottom, Oasis singing their hit, “Wonderwall.”)

Lloyd Braun:

Gail Berman and Wonderwall Staff:

Oasis:

BoomTown is headed to the 2009 Sundance Film Festival today, an annual journey I make to moderate panels about the tech industry.

The festival officially opened yesterday in Park City, Utah. And while still largely a confab of independent filmmakers, Hollywood deal types and various celebrities rifling though swag orgies, a lot of geeks are there too.

Since Sundance also has taken a keen interest in all things digital, ATD moves its HQ there for a few days every January, to the New Frontier on Main digs, to talk to those gathered–for what have become standing-room-only events–about whither tech and how and when it is eventually going to eat the entertainment industry’s lunch.

Oh yes, my friend: Silicon Valley will eat lunch in this snowy town again!

And for good reason, given that the entire movie industry has long worried about how digital distribution will impact its business, especially as every year, the encroachment continues at a relentless pace.

This year, we’re going even more futuristic, with a panel tomorrow at noon titled, “Where Do We Go From Here? Icons of the Digital Age.”

In fact, the panelists are that: Chad Hurley, the co-founder and CEO of the Google (GOOG) video service, YouTube; Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu, the premium online video service that is a joint venture of News Corp. (NWS) and GE (GE) unit NBC Universal; and Reed Hastings, founder and CEO of Netflix (NFLX), the largest online DVD rental service, which has been moving into an ever wider range of distribution of movies on the Web. (News Corp. is the owner of Dow Jones and this Web site.)

Here’s the panel description:

“Remember the world before the Internet, email, and cell phones? Now we try and picture it 15 years from now. If we are currently in the greatest information revolution since the printing press, what can we expect next? How will media, entertainment, and our digital lifestyles change? This roundtable assembles visionaries of the digital revolution to discuss the limits of our imagination.”

It should be an interesting exercise in creative prognostication, although I for one cannot remember the world before the Internet, email and cellphones.

I am also dragging my two young sons there, along with ATD majordomo Ed, so expect lots of filming of our own, with my shaky Flip Mino, to be posted all weekend.

Until then, here’s one of the two videos I did last year, including an interview with MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe and a visit to the trendy party he threw on Main Street with my celebrity friend Jane Lynch as tour guide (and she’ll be back this year for another special guest star appearance!):

Not many online videos have sequels, but the one below–featuring a passel of celebrities, including Tom Cruise, Will Smith, Borat, Leonardo DiCaprio, Julia Roberts, Justin Timberlake, Scarlett Johansson and Harrison Ford–is one and even has famed director Steven Spielberg at the helm.

It is a follow-up to a PSA I posted earlier this month called “Hollywood Declares Themselves,” encouraging young people to vote.

It is from the nonpartisan group Declare Yourself, which has also put out the “Muzzler”/Jessica Alba get-out-the-vote advertising and video.

Declare Yourself is partnering with Google, YouTube and MySpace to distribute the new video, which has been produced by DiCaprio’s Appian Way .

Declare Yourself claims that “since it first debuted on Oct. 1st, the PSA has been viewed over 5,000,000 times. According to all major voting registration sites, including Google, Rock the Vote, and Declare Yourself, over 300,000 new voters registered due to the video alone.”

Here is the new video and also the previous two under it:

Spielberg Directs!

Hollywood Declares Themselves

“Muzzler”/Jessica Alba

It was tasteless and also offensive to Hilton and Spears, which seems an almost impossible task–way to go!

Now, wasting no time in taking advantage of the brouhaha and drawing attention just where it should be–to herself, of course–Hilton did this clever video spoof for the Funny or Die comedy Web site.

Wearing a killer swimsuit, she does manage to make a good suggestion about a sensible energy policy and an even better one to have Rihanna as VP.

Also, Hilton calls McCain “white-haired dude.” That’s hot. Well, warm.

In any case, here’s the Hilton video and the original humorless McCain ad just below it:

Yesterday, BoomTown was hanging in Hollywood at ContentNext’s EconCeleb’s conference, where I did an onstage interview with legendary editor Bonnie Fuller about the massive impact of the Internet on celebrity journalism.

With its instant ability to deliver news, video and more, sites like TMZ, PerezHilton, The Superficial and Yahoo’s (YHOO) omg! have become massive drivers of traffic on the Internet and–despite the saturation–the arena is still growing fast, especially among women users.

But for those not in the know about Fuller’s impact on how celebrity journalism has developed to its current power, she is the reason–more than any other modern editor–humanity now knows every move made by the unholy trio of Paris, Lindsay and, most of all, Britney.

As founding editor of US Weekly (with stints at Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire and other mags), and as the editorial director of the parent company of Star magazine, Fuller’s various editorial innovations–celebrities are just like us!–are now commonplace.

And like a lot of old media stars, Fuller is now working on her own new celeb-focused digital and media company, which she says is aimed at women 20 to 40 years old, plunging headlong into the Web arena.

Here’s my video interview with her in an alcove of the Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard, where we discuss what she is up to and where online celebrity coverage is going (Britney 24-7!):

At its EconCeleb conference in Hollywood today, ContentNext released its list of the most influential and innovative online celebrities today.

It is an interesting and varied list that includes everyone from powerhouse Oprah (pictured here, of course!) to the bisexual sprite, Tila Tequila.

The list, in ascending order:

10. Martha Stewart (she is actually a closet geek)

9. Tila Tequila (vile, but in a good way)

8. Peter Gabriel (a longtime Web pioneer in the digital music space)

7. Radiohead (innovative band pushing Web distribution boundaries)

6. Stephen Colbert (funny online and off)

5. 50 Cent (the urban rap artist as nerd)

4. Oprah Winfrey (um, she’s runs the real world and could run the Internet if she felt like it)

3. Ashton Kutcher (not just a pretty face, but one who gets the power of viral marketing)

2. Will.i.am (for that Barack Obama mashup video alone)

1. Will Ferrell, Chris Henchy & Adam McKay (FunnyOrDie.com might not make money, but it is very funny)

Lloyd Braun–the former Hollywood super-programmer turned Yahoo entertainment czar turned Hollywood and online programmer–has signed a multimillion-dollar deal to make an original destination site for Microsoft’s MSN portal, aimed at aggregating celebrity, entertainment and pop culture news, according to several sources.

With the still-unnamed site, MSN plants its own Paris Hilton flag in a very crowded field, which has numerous competitors such as People.com, PerezHilton.com, AOL’s TMZ.com, PopSugar.com and Yahoo’s OMG.

It is also interesting that Microsoft (MSFT), which has focused its efforts of late on its technology, especially related to online advertising and search, is making another foray into the content arena via MSN, where it has had mixed results in the past.

Ironically, Braun (pictured here) was the exec who green-lighted the OMG site, which aggregates celebrity-oriented content and has since become a big traffic success for Yahoo (YHOO).

The deal, which will be announced tomorrow, will be a joint venture with Microsoft and BermanBraun Media–an independent multimedia production company headed by Braun and also former Hollywood studio exec Gail Berman.

Braun left Yahoo under a cloud, after clashing with his superiors who had brought him in to make new online programming, as he is doing now.

But that has not stopped Yahoo from making its own deal with Braun, sources said, a much smaller effort to produce a daily “Lunacy Report.” The deal has not yet been announced, although it has been signed.

That online project will be focused on “weird news,” which is an amazingly huge driver of page views on Yahoo’s news site–almost 7%–featuring stories like one today about a man who was jailed for faking his own death.

The video-heavy “Lunacy Report” will have Vance DeGeneres, who is the executive producer of the HardlyNews online parody site and also brother of Ellen DeGeneres, as its host.

But the MSN deal is a much larger one, requiring BermanBraun to staff up, and it already has many former Yahoo employees involved in the project, sources said.

That’s because, akin to a regular Hollywood production studio, BermanBraun will be building both the front and back end using Microsoft technology. Both BermanBraun and Microsoft will be selling ads for the site.

But it is Microsoft that will be footing much of the multimillion budget for the site–to launch in early 2009–and will own it outright. It will get support on the main MSN page and also throughout the service.

Advertisers briefed on the project said the site is aiming for higher integration of branding than just simple display ads, looking for innovative ways in which marketing messages are integrated into content.

And it will be designed to be much more interactive to spur more engagement. In fact, the new site does not look like a typical MSN site, said sources who have seen it, with a highly stylized design and a wide range of applications.

Braun was reportedly pitching advertisers last week in New York, who said he described it as focused on the wider pop culture scene and not just on celebrities, which is an area of much user interest online.

It is not clear if PepsiCo (PEP) will be a major advertiser yet. BermanBraun announced a deal last July with Pepsi to support original entertainment content developed for online platforms.

The entertainment and marketing arm of the beverage giant has a “first-look” at BermanBraun online projects and has a chance to fund and sponsor original online content it produces.

What will be most interesting will be what happens to the new MSN site and OMG, if Microsoft and Yahoo do manage to strike a merger deal at some point, despite a failure to do so thus far.

I had previously posted a piece about the site in May, because I consider it one of the really great content sites on the Internet–using a nice blend of text, video, audio and a laser focus on intense reporting on its topic to yield a whole new kind of media that is Web born and bred.

Here’s my tour of TMZ’s new studio on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, right across from the trendy Hyde club (of course!):

Sure, that topic is to chronicle All Things Britney, Lindsay and Paris, but who cares? What TMZ proves, with its ever-growing audience of millions and millions, is that the Internet requires much more than simply porting of offline content online to succeed.

That kind of stuff has been simply lazy on the part of Hollywood and, really, all traditional media, which still have a very hard time creating new kinds of online content of any lasting kind.

TMZ, to my mind, should be a road map for what works well.

And now, in an interesting move, TMZ’s fare is also on television, with a recently launched syndicated show–heading backward into old media from new media.

Entering the crowded celebrity entertainment television field will doubtlessly be a tougher challenge, and the jury is still out on its success. But I like the chutzpah of TMZ’s efforts.

The brainchild of Harvey Levin and Jim Paratore, who came to the Web from longtime television backgrounds, the site made its bones by breaking stories about the antics of naughty celebs like Mel Gibson, Alec Baldwin and all those girls behaving badly.

Rather than kissing up to the celebrity culture, TMZ’s tougher stance has, well, distinguished it from a lot of others.

TMZ.com is owned by Time Warner. It was launched in 2005 jointly by its Telepictures and AOL units in an unusual–for Time Warner, at least–cooperative effort.

I did video interviews with Levin and Paratore too.