Comments on: Here Comes Another “Women’s Site”

By: Andrea Learned

Andrea Learned — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 18:50:33 +0000

Keep me posted, Allison, on that 40+ demo of yours. I’m in that demo myself, but clearly may be odd gal out as far as my own preferences/experiences (and what I know, anecdotally, of my close friends). Thanks for sharing your experience.

By: Allison Allen

Allison Allen — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:56:55 +0000

That is so very interesting…one of the first things I had a couple of members tell me after we launched WomenBloom was they couldn’t find anything to buy!

The plan was to keep advertising very low key, and very focused but Oryx and my own experience tell me maybe the low key part isn’t as important as I might think with my 40+ demographic.

Hmmm….

By: Andrea Learned

Andrea Learned — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:14:25 +0000

Appreciate the inside info, Oryx. Perhaps there is something very generational about how women feel about advertising on sites? Or, maybe ads are so much a part of our culture that they don’t really drive absolutely everyone crazy. Those who don’t want to see them can very obviously look right over them (in-brain Tivo). Very interesting to ponder.

By: Oryx Orange

Oryx Orange — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 19:45:19 +0000

I’m a man, but I co-run an e-commerce site whose customers are 97% women. Also, more than 70% of those users are over 45. I generally agree with your comments about being careful not to use one’s social network as a blatant advertising vehicle, but one thing that we regularly experience is that, the older the user, the more she not only responds to but actually desires advertising. We survey our users all the time and, even in this age where telling the story is a much better strategy than the old-fashioned hard-sell, I’m always surprised by the number of our users who cite hard advertising as a very important element in their decision to purchase.

By: Allison Allen

Allison Allen — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:47:37 +0000

I agree. If many of the sites out there are any indication, we often aren’t given much credit for intelligence and a desire to be informed about issues that concern us, it seems to me.

We launched WomenBloom–yes another women’s site, sorry–in January. It’s aimed at women in mid-life. Goal 1 is to offer intelligent, substantive information and commentary on issues that are of concern to women in that age group. Goal 2 is to highlight the cool things this generation of mid-lifers are doing.

I’m a mid-lifer myself and have talked to many others so I have some idea of what is on our minds.

I’m passionate about what us midlife ladies are up to. I hope this project reflects that…time will tell whether other women feel the same.

By: Kevin Burke

Kevin Burke — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 15:58:46 +0000

I perceive part of the problem as being that society still struggles with understanding women and how much roles have changed and emerged. Many people still think June Cleaver when someone says ‘mom’, and ‘single woman’ equals Carrie from Sex in the City. Isn’t it pathetic? The same certainly doesn’t hold true for men. Businesses that appreciate women, understand how they differ from men, and position their service with those aspects in mind, thrive. Shine was built for advertisers, not women.

By: Andrea Learned

Andrea Learned — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 15:53:31 +0000

See – that’s the thing. I think the women’s sites are copying one another, and feeling like they’ve got some sort of twist – rather than starting from scratch and really basing their decisions on what their women’s segment of choosing is talking about and interested in. Presenting topics without fear/anxiety, i.e. your example of raising teens, or something like “enjoying food more” rather than “how to lose those last 10 pounds we know you have” would be AMAZING! Thanks for the comment, Nora!

By: Nora

Nora — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 15:38:55 +0000

I quickly clicked through to SHINE because I actually haven’t found my online group yet. And I found exactly what I have found on every other site for women None of the editors or writers are over 30 (with one exception, and she does finance). The stuff on parenting is for Mommies. Not Moms. When your kids are 17, you are a Mom. When will the big THEY get it? We are Moms for life. We don’t quit being Moms when our kids turn 12. We still have questions and it’s not always about what to do if my kid is a teen drug dealer. Some of us have really great teenagers! We’d like to know about how to get our kids a good summer job. I swear, teens are so alien to the planet that I wouldn’t blame them if when they come of age, they locked us all up in our old folks homes and threw away the keys.

I’d love a website that showed families with teenagers in them behaving humanly. I love to talk about how to raise the perfect teenager — clue: start when they are three. I’d love to have really open discussions about sex, drugs and rock and roll with other parents. (Parents always claim to want to know what their kids are doing, but what are you going to say when he/she says “I got sooo drunk at Cindy’s party.” Remember — you wanted to know.) But I can’t find that site. If you look at parenting teens sites the underlying assumption is that you have a problem. Sigh . . .

So Shine, like so many other sites for women, is shining me on . . .