Female-Oriented Sites Become Hot Properties

A rise in popularity of womens' websites and blogs has resulted in a huge marketing splurge, The New York Times reports. Writer Claire Cain Miller says these sites grew 35 percent last year according to a comScore report, which she claims has no specific category for men's sites.

And, she says, advertisers “showed 4.4 billion display ads on women's Web sites in May.”

Sites and online newsletters like Daily Candy (which Comcast recently purchased for $125 million), Yahoo’s Shine, and the BlogHer and Glam Media networks have shown great potential with investors flocking to the newly-minted online goldmine.

What’s really interesting is the reasons that advertisers and execs are giving for the popularity of the sites, with very bold statements about the roles and interests of women on the Internet:

"Moms are the decision-makers of the household as far as purchases are concerned," said Chris Actis, vice president and digital director at MediaVest, an ad agency.

Joni Evans, the literary agent who has found a second career as chief executive of wowOwow, said the gender disparity comes from the fact that women thrive on sharing anecdotes.

"Women love to reach out and talk; it's just the nature of women," and the Web is perfectly suited to that, she said.

"Time and time again, women are happy to see their relationship with their food, their clothes and their relationships externally manifested in entertainment and how-to content," said Lauren Zalaznick, president of NBC Universal's women and lifestyle entertainment networks.

Strong words that perhaps the women who visit the sites would not appreciate hearing. But Miller also states that sites with more serious topics like politics have not been as successful, and so they continue to stick with what works: “fashion, beauty, celebrities and love life.”

Woman to woman, online [The New York Times]

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