The number of women on the Internet grew from 15 percent of all U.S. Internet users in 1995 to only 17 percent in 1997 and 26 percent in 1998. However, as the Internet became a more mainstream media outlet in the late 1990s, particularly in the U.S., more women began to seek online access. Roughly 60 percent of new Internet users in 1999 were women, and by year's end, the number of women on the Internet nearly equaled the number of men. In 2000, women who accessed the Internet from home did so mainly to find news and information. Some also used the Internet to plan trips and book tickets, and to take care of banking needs online.
Even before women became a leading presence on the Internet—they began to outnumber men in the first quarter of 2000—several World Wide Web sites specifically targeting women, including iVillage.com, Oxygen.com, and Women.com, had emerged. According to a March 2001 article in San Jose Mercury News, the fact that women typically make about 80 percent of a household's spending decisions seemed to bode well for these "women's Web" sites. "Dozens of sites offering information, chat, and shopping sprang up in recent years, creating online communities where women could forge relationships and find content created especially for them. Advertisers were then supposed to flock to these sites, eager to parade their wares in front of legions of educated and affluent women online." Like most sites reliant on online advertising, however, these women's hubs struggled to secure the amount of advertising needed to produce a profit.
User Comments Add a comment…