Memo Pad: The Ladies Who Search
by Stephanie D. Smith
Posted Monday December 29, 2008
From WWD Issue 12/29/2008
THE LADIES WHO SEARCH: Though most of the media is retrenching under economic pressures, the Internet still remains a potential growth area, thanks to its relatively low start-up costs and immediate delivery to consumers. Among the new offerings, Web sites targeted to women are growing in numbers, serving up content across a wide swath of subjects and age groups. Slate.com will expand its popular blog, The XX Factor, into its own site in the spring. Elizabeth Spiers, founder of Dead Horse Media and a contributor to Fortune magazine, is developing an online women’s magazine she pegged as “Maxim for women.”
(Maxim for women... does the world really need that?)
The sites will join TheFrisky.com, a Web site for 18- to 34-year-olds covering love and relationships; Yahoo’s women’s lifestyle portal Shine.com, and Wowowow.com, a site targeting women over 40.
(somehow the New York blond thing doesn't look like it leads to much diversification of ideas or opinions)Wowowow.com, the site launched by a band of “old media” female journalists and writers including Joni Evans, Liz Smith, Lesley Stahl, Joan Juliet Buck and Whoopi Goldberg, has gathered a strong following among women over 40 — nearly 600,000 unique visitors in November and 4.5 million page views, according to their estimates. Tiffany, Sony, Citi, Ralph Lauren and Jones New York all have advertised on the site this year. “Because we are a well-educated and wealthier group, this is a targeted area where women come to….It’s a demographic that serves advertisers well,” explained Evans. Next year, the site will introduce more offline events with the founding editors, and more social networking functions to bring in voices from its commenters.
About the last website that I would click on would include articles by mainstream media divas (or rather dinosaurs) like Mary Wells, Peggy Noonan, Lesley Stahl, Liz Smith and Joni Evan, with their Upper East Side-5th Avenue slant. It just blows me away that wowwow whatever can get 600,000 unique hits and 4.5 million page views.
The whole point of going to the net is to find fresh voices and opinions and to get away from mainstream media manufactured writing.
I'd much rather read what these women write on their blogs...and no I don't necessarily agree with their opinions, but I do find them irreverent and interesting.
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2 comments:
Thanks for including me on your list! You're the best commentarist in the blogging world.
Karen...I'd rather read anything that you post than something from the New York blonds!
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