Last Friday's ranking of the top-earning actresses in Hollywood was just a tasty appetizer for the Reporter's annual, year-end feast celebrating show business lady-potency, their Power 100 list of the most influential females in a still male-dominated entertainment industry. Determined to avenge last year's loss and regain the Iron Tiara she's held in three of the last four years, Disney Media Networks co-chairman Anne Sweeney spent the last 12 months engaged in a physically punishing training regimen in preparation for her rematch with 2006 titleholder, Sony's Amy Pascal, in last night's pay-per-view Power 100 Championship Pillow-Fight Presented by Lifetime Networks

Disney's buying 20 Internet startups in the next two years, and suddenly startuppers have a whole new world to imagine. They know about selling out to the same old tech giants: At Google, get rich and leave for another startup; at Yahoo, get bogged down in bureaucracy; at Microsoft, disappear like Haley Joel Osment. But what happens to a startup at Disney? Here's an inside look.

Hey founders, if you're worried about getting roped onto Google's kindergarten campus wait 'til you hear about the latest acquisition predator. The Mouse.

In the grand Disney movie "subliminally embedded filth or regrettable accident?" tradition of The Little Mermaid's Aroused Minister (in which a bony knee looks a lot like an erection) and Aladdin's "Good teenagers, take off your clothes," slashfilm.com investigates rumors of an F-bomb being dropped in their latest PG-rated insta-classic, Enchanted:

As you slowly awaken from your tryptophan-induced comas, only vaguely remembering the pounds of turkey and glasses of scotch consumed over the previous four days, stare bleary-eyed at the weekend box office numbers:

Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner maintains Hollywood writers are stupid for striking over how much they should be compensated for Internet video. Over the weekend, he told the New York Times there isn't any money in Internet video. At least not any money in Internet video he has a hand in. "The shows that I made for [the Internet] cost like $3,000 for 90 seconds," Eisner explained, referring to his failed made-for-Internet efforts "Prom Queen" and "Prom Queen: Summer Heat." Of course, Eisner, whose exit from Disney was hastened by irate shareholders, is no stranger to failure.

Writers are striking in Hollywood because they want a bigger piece — in fact, any piece — of revenue studios earn when they put content online. The studios like to claim the content is "promotional" — a use for which writers don't get paid — and that the promise of the Internet isn't fully understood yet. The World Wide Web might still be a fad. Nonsense, say writers, who have distributed fliers claiming Disney will pull in $1.5 billion in digital revenue this year.

MerchantCircle has secured an additional $10 million in series B funding from past investors Rustic Canyon Partners, Scale Venture Partners, and Steamboat Ventures (Disney's VC arm), as well as new investors including Barry Diller's IAC and Square 1 Bank. The press release claims, "the investment validates the company's 'merchant-first' business model." I'd say, rather, it confirms that investors who should know better will sink cash into a disreputable business.

Vanessa Hudgens, the Disney Channel star who saw her wholesome image go up in a puff of cackling-Britney-shaped smoke after nude photos of the actress proliferated across the internet, will not be returning for a third slurp at the High School Musical trough, OK! reports:

Rather than do the sensible thing by dynamiting its long-abandoned California Adventure theme park to make room for more Disneyland parking facilities, Disney instead plans to spend $1.1 billion to roust the homeless squatters that have taken up residence in the Twilight Zone Tower and add some new Pixar-inspired areas, hoping that new attractions like the Ratatouille Rodent-Infested Food Court will revive interest in the site. [WSJ.com]

"ABC is the only major broadcast network that is using the staff of its evening newscast to produce a separate and distinct daily program for a Web audience," a New York Times feature reports today. Among the differences from the broadcast show: More casual correspondents, plus longer back-and-forths between anchor and reporter that would be cut to seven seconds on cable. But ABC's online clips are shackled by two Web video blunders.

Some IPOs — like Google and VMWare—are impressive from the start. Others — like Vonage, which has fallen 85 percent since going public — fall flat. Virgin Mobile, with its cherry brand name and backers, should have had a sparkling debut. And yet it didn't.

In today's Variety Youth Impact Report, a special section in which the trade publication spotlights the precocious performers who will one day either rise to Fanningesque domination of the industry or challenge Lindsay Lohan's Herbie: Fully Loaded record for most hangover-induced missed call times, experts from Hollywood's various child-exploitation vocations suggest that their cherubic moneymaking machines might more effectively generate commissions if kept tuned-up with some preventative maintenance. Call it "prehab":

If word on the playground is to be believed, Disney spent $350 million (or maybe twice that) on Club Penguin, a fad fading faster than hypercolor. Apparently children are fickle beasts, happy to glom onto the newest igloo-decorating simulator. Penguins have fallen out of favor, according to our preteen correspondents. "Do you use Club Penguin anymore?" asked one 8-year-old. The response: "No, it's too old school." At least they're learning to cynically identify fads when they're young.

Disney has learned a harrowing lesson: Breaking into the wireless business is no Mickey-Mouse affair. Since it's too expensive to compete with the big carriers, Disney Mobile is shutting down. Instead, it will focus its efforts on licensing its Family Center suite, which provides services like child tracking and phone disabling, to other carriers. You'd think Disney would have already learned this lesson with its ESPN subsidiary's defunct wireless service, which found last year that it was too late to get into the game.

Today's Page Six previews W's upcoming story on the rapidly growing membership of the all-female Velvet Mob splinter group the magazine has dubbed the Rubyfruit Mafia, a faction whose influence grows each time one of the industry's power-lesbians makes the brave choice to step out of the closet:

In a shocking—just shocking!—development in the Vanessa Hudgens Nudie Photos Scandal, a "source close to the situation" says that the High School Musical libertine sent the racy images to Drake Bell...star of Nickelodeon's Josh and Drake. We know! Already-enraged Disney Channel execs will be additionally livid about Hudgens' disloyal decision to show her body to a direct competitor's horny talent. [People]

· High School Musical 2 pulls in a staggering 17.2 million viewers, making it the most-watched basic cable show ever. And we still have only the vaguest idea of what it is beyond some footage of that kid who's too tan singing. [Variety]
· Jason Biggs and Lizzy Caplan sign up for second banana duty on the the Kate Hudson/Dane Cook comedy Bachelor No. 2, playing the BFFs who must cope with the hilarious antics of their higher-billed castmates. [THR]
· Nerdgasm alert! Veronica Mars star Kristen Bell is joining the cast of Heroes, which apparently won a battle with Lost for her services on a multi-episode arc. [Variety]
· Jessica Lucas is added to the talent roster of CSI, but officially not as a replacement for Jorja Fox's possibly-dead character Sara. [THR]
· Hollywood's Random Romantic Comedy Cast Generator spits out a pairing of Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston for an adaptation of the bestseller Marley and Me, the story of a couple who adopt a dog as a trial run for parenthood. Spoiler alert: Thing's don't go well at first, but in the end, everyone learns lessons about love, adulthood, and responsibility! [Variety]

· Don Imus earns a multi-million dollar windfall for calling the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos." Nicely played, CBS! [Variety]
· Disney adds Bernie Mac to a magical Old Dogs cast that already includes John Travolta and Robin Williams; Mac will play the part of the take-no-shit character that glowers out from the one-sheet as his harried co-stars are run ragged by the 7-year-old twins they have no idea how to care for. [THR]
· Rosario Dawson hitches her wagon to Shia Labeouf's quickly rising star, signing on for the DreamWorks thriller Eagle Eye. [Variety]
· Fox's late-summer crap (the Hell's Kitchen finale and a new episode of So You Think You Can Dance) easily wins Monday night against other network's rerun garbage. [THR]
· NBC cordially invites the loyal viewers of Today to choke on a new, fourth hour of their beloved morning chatfest. [Variety]

ESPN is relaunching ESPN360, its sports-video broadband website, but it still hasn't figured out that new media require new business models. The Disney-owned channel has tried to use the same moneymaking scheme that worked so well on cable companies: Instead of charging consumers, charge the distributor. But few Internet service providers bit, limiting the site's reach to fewer than 16 million homes, and failures during the 2006 FIFA World Cup soccer games turned off the few viewers who actually logged on.The Wall Street Journal predicts that ESPN is poised to announce plans to relaunch the channel next month. But instead of addressing the basic problem of access, ESPN is refocusing 360 on live, second-tier events like polo, rugby and lacrosse. Way to make it even more niche.