By STEVEN SCHWANKERT
(Virtual China News, Apr. 5) Good information for Chinese women has been the echoing silence in China's Internet market. But by the end of the month, no fewer than six sites will seek to woo one of the Net's most under-represented demographics.
Sports, music, and financial information were just three of the topics that quickly found their way into an increasing vertical Internet market. However, with low user numbers even for China's relatively small market, content and marketing has focused on groups perceived as having more disposable income and faster adoption rates.
Now, Chinese women are being recognized as too large a group not to draw widespread attention -- and capital. As such, Redskirt.com, CWOW (Chinese Women On the Web), Amygal.com, Yesee.com, Hercafe.com and Gaogenxie.com (High Heels) are ready to create a feminine space on the Web.
The first entrant to the category is the Santa Clara, California-based Redskirt.com. Launched in December by two Taiwan-born founders, the site is intended to create a community for Chinese women throughout the Pacific Rim.
Problem: Low Traffic
CWOW joined the party last month from a Hong Kong base, with Amygal launching last week as a joint venture between ChineseBooks Cyberstore and Minsen Ltd., the publisher of Amy Magazine, a Chinese-language women's publication with distribution in Canada, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
Next week, Gaogenxie.com launches officially in Beijing, becoming the second such Beijing-based site along with Yesee.com.
While serving up the usual family and relationship-related fare found in women's publications worldwide, the new sites may have advantages their print counterparts don't: anonymity and community.
Topics such as sex and domestic violence may be more easily discussed in a chatroom full of aliases than in a room filled with friends.
The sites face at least one short-term challenge: low traffic. With less than two million total users in Hong Kong and because only 21 percent of China's Net users are female (1.89 million), Chinese-language sites have a smaller audience to draw on than sports or music, which can draw on the large numbers of male users to fuel page views.
However, Taiwan may serve as an example, with female Net use quickly reaching the level of men, Wired News reported.
In the long run, Chinese women may become one of the Web's leading targets. With women spending more on their online purchases than their male counterparts, 600 million potential e-commerce customers are too many to pass up, especially in a nation where personal spending is on a meteoric
rise.
To reach Steven Schwankert: steven@virtualchina.net
