The teen pop trend may have slowed down in 2002, but teenagers are always looking for stars their own age. Each year, some of those stars get older and start to make waves with the general entertainment audience. Based on what we've seen over the last few weeks, 2003 may see 15-year-old Hilary Duff become one of those stars.

A New Year's marathon of her Disney Channel sitcom Lizzie McGuire led to a surge in searches for Duff, who was been popular with kids all year long but doubled in searches during the last three weeks. Future projects indicate that Duff could be in for even more fame down the road.

The popular Lizzie McGuire chronicles the adventures of a junior high school student and her two best friends, with a unique hook: Lizzie has a cartoon alter ego that comments on the action. The show appears daily on the Disney Channel, plus Saturday mornings on ABC.

But Lizzie has already wrapped up production, with all the episodes through the end of the series already filmed, so that Duff can move on to bigger and better things: movies and music.

On March 14, she hits theatres in the teenage secret agent adventure Agent Cody Banks, with Malcom in the Middle star Frankie Muniz. Then on May 2 comes a movie version of Lizzie McGuire, as Lizzie graduates from junior high and heads to Rome on a vacation with her family. Nickelodeon has been moving its popular shows to the big screen for a while now, but this is the first Disney Channel show to become a film.

Duff's music career is also off to a good start, at least with the kids. Her single "I Can't Wait," off a recently released soundtrack for Lizzie McGuire, jousts with Avril Lavigne for the top spot on the kids-oriented Radio Disney network. She also released a Christmas album called Santa Claus Lane.

Lest you think she's all sugary sweetness, she has a solo album scheduled for next fall with what her publicists are calling "slightly more mature songs." Parents everywhere hope that "mature songs" does not mean "dress like Christina Aguilera."

From Christina and Britney and the other Mickey Mouse kids, to Alyssa Milano and Melissa Joan Hart, a number of teen stars have moved to wider success as they got older. It remains to be seen whether Duff will choose a singing career, a network television sitcom, or movies, but her searches in the past few months show she has the foundation to be popular in any of those venues.

TOMORROW: Joe Millionaire vs. The Bachelorette on the new Lycos 50.