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Advertisers Target 'Mommy Blogs'

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The New York Times

Published: August 14, 2008

Heather Armstrong's wickedly funny blog about motherhood, Dooce, is more than just an outlet for the creativity and frustrations of a modern mother. The site, chock full of advertising, is a money-making machine - so much so that Armstrong and her husband have both quit their regular jobs.

J.C. Penney and Crate & Barrel hawk their furniture and offer decorating tips next to posts on Armstrong's conversations with her 4-year-old daughter, Leta.
Walgreens promotes its photo printing services next to pictures of the family dog. And the W Hotel chain of Starwood brags about its Internet-friendly rooms on the Dooce (pronounced deuce) home page.

These advertisers are eager to influence the 850,000 readers, mostly women, who avidly follow Armstrong's adventures.

Dooce's revenue this year is on track to be seven times what it was in 2006, according to Federated Media, which sells ads for the blog.

Sites aimed primarily at women, from "mommy blogs" to makeup and fashion sites, grew 35 percent last year - faster than every other category on the Web except politics, according to comScore, an Internet traffic measurement company. Women's sites had 84 million visitors in July, 27 percent more than the same month last year, comScore said.

Advertisers are following the crowd, serving up 4.4 billion display ads on women's Web sites in May, comScore said. "Moms are the decision makers of the household as far as purchases are concerned," said Chris Actis, vice president and digital director at the ad agency MediaVest.

The rapid growth in advertising and traffic to women's sites has attracted the attention of major media companies and venture capitalists.

Last week, for example, the cable giant Comcast paid about $125 million to buy the shopping and entertainment site DailyCandy, which calls itself "a free daily e-mail from the front lines of fashion, food, and fun."

In July, Peacock Equity, a venture partnership of NBC Universal and General Electric, and Venrock, a venture capital firm, invested $5 million in BlogHer, a network of 2,200 blogs by and for women.

In March, Yahoo created Shine, a site that publishes original content, blog posts from readers and articles from traditional women's magazine publishers like Hearst and Conde Nast.

Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a major Silicon Valley venture firm, sees so much opportunity that it has made several bets in the sector, including in Glam Media, a network of 650 women's sites that draws more visitors than its rivals and has raised $114 million from investors.

"I love women. Women are more than half the population, and they do most of the shopping," said Tim Draper, the venture firm's co-founder and managing director.

Although men are heavy users of the Web, they don't tend to visit sites explicitly aimed at them. AOL's Living channel for women had 16.1 million unique visitors in June, while its Asylum site, a top men's destination online, had only 3.3 million.

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