Girls just wanna have fun

Traditionally, women have lagged behind men in the adoption of Internet-based
technologies, but a recent study released by the Pew Internet & American Life
Project has found that women below the age of 30 have outpowered men in Internet
usage.

The Washington-based organization, which has been conducting surveys on
different aspects of technology and Internet usage for several years, has
demystified the disparity across age groups. The report found that 86 percent of
women between 18-29 were online, compared to 80 percent of men in the same age
group.

Back home, according to an IAMAI-IMRB survey, March 2008 saw 43 million
active users online. It also revealed that 38 percent of Indian Internet users
(14 mn) spent an average of eight hours per week online. While working women
spent an average of 535 minutes a week on the Internet, non-working women spent
334 minutes a week.

The urban woman is surely giving stiff competition to her rural counterpart
and vice versa-online. Web 2.0's final frontier, before it morphs itself into
Mobile 2.0 or something else, seems to be luring the independent Indian woman to
embracing the power of the Internet, to connect with one another. Ladies-only
networking sites are suddenly gaining mass acceptance and online gaming sites
are dedicating separate sections for women. We even came across a site dedicated
to women jamming up and planning foreign holidays together.

Home Networking

www.sitagita.com

According to Nirmal Mirza, CEO of Sitagita.com, a ladies-only networking site
which has been around for more than eight years, women from all over the country
are doing small but significant businesses from home, and her website hopes to
connect all of them. She explains: “Every working woman goes through a stage in
her life when she takes an extended maternity leave, when she keeps off work and
embarks on her hobbies seriously. These hobbies could be anything: jewelry
designing, saree patterns, or interior decoration.

Sitagita.com has created an extensive business directory in order to connect
them with each other. In other words, it is both a B2B and B2C site dedicated to
women. The site's Women's Home Business Directory has categories like beauty,
food and entertainment, flowers, health, music/dance, and tuitions. Each section
has a huge number of listings from women who post their profiles, contact
details, and brief descriptions of nature of work. “Suppose there is a saree
designer in Salem, and a woman in Mumbai wants to purchase her designs, this
forum will help them connect with each other. In the course of time, with
broadband connectivity becoming widespread, Sitagita hopes to cater more to the
rural market, since we feel the real motto of the website-empowering women
through the Web-will be realized there,” says Mirza.

Cyberspace seems to be luring the women in India with everything from home jobs to online gaming and everything in between

All-women Getaways

www.wowsumitra.com

Sumitra Senapaty's WOW Club, which stands for Women on Wanderlust, is
probably India's first travel site for women. Sumitra, a travel enthusiast,
embarked on the idea of WOW when she was holidaying in Kerala with her extended
family. “As a strange coincidence, each and every male member of the family
happened to drop out of the trip, leaving about a dozen women alone. We went
ahead as planned, and were quite surprised to find out that though our age group
ranged between 16-60, we still had common topics to talk about. This is when the
idea of WOW dawned on me,” says Sumitra.

WOW members have traveled to locations like Egypt, South Africa, China, and
Ladakh. The site features photos and blogs of WOW travails besides the tour
calendar for the next year. All one needs to do to become a member is register
herself with the website. Sumitra says, “In today's age, a woman need not always
travel with her spouse or family. The new age woman, who works hard through the
day and takes on the role of a wife or daughter post work, deserves a break once
in a while. This is the sentiment behind WOW.”

Play Your Games

www.zapak.com/zapakgirls

Zapak, the country's first online gaming portal, recently announced an
impressive chunk of space for Zapak Girls, a section dedicated to young women
who have a passion for massively multiplayer online games (MMOG), including
strategy games, arcade games, even select war games, and puzzle games.

Zapak has created exclusive content for this section-virtual casinos,
cooking-based games, home management games, besides a regular dose of popular
Indian and international titles that are updated every week. The Indian lineup
is quite impressive too, with comic games like Akhiyon Se Goli Maare, a game
where you device strategies to deal with goonda-mawalis who tease you as you
travel along the cyber highway. Another example is the woman against man or
woman against woman Panja games where the strongest elbow wins.

In order to complete the girlie experience, the site also features an offer
by a cosmetic brand that helps you replicate Deepika Padukone's Om Shanti Om
look.

Gang Up

www.sunsilkgangofgirls.com

Initially, this website comes across as a desperate attempt by a shampoo
manufacturer to appeal to the teenybopper audience using the Internet, but a
serious evaluation of the portal makes us realize that it is one of the very few
that have taken women seriously. It features things like women-only blogs,
in-house job portal exclusively for women, and discussion forums on home
improvement, adventure sports, and relationship management.

Men, however, are restricted to only 'viewing' the pages. They cannot
participate in discussions, can't even access the blog section, and to make
matters worse, if one logs in as a male, he is automatically classified as a
'desperate man'.

Vishnu Anand

maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in