The tech community is having a lot of fun tearing apart The Hub, WalMart's new MySpace clone. The site is part of a marketing effort launched for the "back-to-school" season - as you might have guessed, it's a singularly terrible effort.

First off, the site has been pre-populated with four "real" kids, all of them irritating and stereotypical - the shopaholic, the skateboarder, the footballer and the aspiring R&B artist. The characters star in scripted videos wherein (coincidentally) WalMart is regularly cited. Users are referred to as "Hubsters" and the tagline is "school my way". You're encouraged to create your own page on the network, for which you could win a laptop or a digital camera. What's more, if you submit a compelling video clip, you could win a starring role in a WalMart commercial (woot!). One hilarious quote on the site reads: "I'll school my way by looking hot in my WalMart clothes...to catch a cute boy's eye".

WalMart is also screening the site's content - "objectionable" videos are removed and the site will email the parents of every registered user to make sure they approve. And of course you can use the service to note down items you want to buy at WalMart - a wholesome activity by anyone's standards.

The Hub is lame for a fairly obvious reason: social networks are by their nature edgy, subversive and frequently offensive. As we've seen with MySpace Comedy, brands don't want to be associated with that type of content, and feel much more comfortable when there's some kind of control. It's a problem that YouTube will also face. The fact that this is a shameless marketing attempt from one of the world's biggest retailers - a brand that's ubiquitous, cheap and decidedly uncool - just makes the situation worse. Let's hope they kill this one off as soon as possible.

In fact, this makes me wonder if the Friendster patent might actually be a good thing...

[via AdAge]