Will We See Celebrity 2.0 For Startups? Lindsay on Twitter? Jared on Traineo?

During the Web 1.0 boom, startups had huge buckets of cash and signed celebrities (mostly B-listers) to help promote their product or service in advertising and in person. Flooz had Whoopi, Priceline had William Shatner and Pets.com had a celebrity sock puppet among others.

We already see celebrities endoring gadgets and electronics including the Apple Macbook Air and the iPhone. You’ve got Andrew Shue of Melrose Place fame running CafeMom – how many mothers have signed up for the service because of Andrew’s ties? Today we saw Mandy Moore get in with uPumpItUp. There are even more examples in the sports Web 2.0/social networking space.

With that said, should the new crop of startups look to celebs as a way to make it out of the geek sector and into the mainstream? What about these combinations:

• a sponsored Twitter channel for Britney or Lindsay?
• ZocDoc signing the doctor from E!’s Dr. 90210, Dr. Robert Rey?
• Donald Trump promoting Geezeo?
• Playmate of the Year Dalene Kurtis promoting Zivity?
• Zooomr signing some famous photographers to have channels within the service?
• Rachael Ray promoting RecipeMatcher or AllRecipe?
• Jared from Subway promoting Traineo?
• Any of the HGTV show hosts promoting Properazzi?

It wouldn’t make sense for services that are already mainstream to use celebrities for promotion. Services like Facebook have no need to hire a celeb as they are already in the news nearly daily.

Naturally today most startups are bootstrapping and/or have small amounts of funding compared to 1999. But even so, celebrities might get in the game for potential equity if the idea has an exit or strong monetization strategy. And while I have targeted mostly U.S. celebs, naturally this could work for any country. And it could be even more effective for a startup wanting to enter into another country where they have little to no presence.

Please share your opinion; Could you see celebrities making a comeback in promoting various startups? Is it a waste of cash or a smart marketing tactic that is currently being overlooked? If you like the idea, what combinations would you suggest?