August 01, 2000
Article

British Women’s Web Sites Enormously Gracious About iVillage’s Planned Invasion

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Consumer portals for women – just when you thought the
bandwagon was full, along comes another passenger:
iVillage, in partnership with Tesco, has announced the
forthcoming launch of iVillage UK in Q4 2000 with a revenue
model based largely on advertising and sponsorship. Did
existing women’s sites in the UK recoil in horror at this
prospect? We invited them to comment.

Glenda Stone from Busygirl: ‘iVillage UK will mean more
competition, smarter strategies for attracting and
retaining customers, and more recognition of women as a
powerful and important market force. Ultimately, if the
alliance makes life easier for women, they will accept it.
If it offers the key elements of value, time saving,
community and entertainment, then it will receive strong
and consistent interest.’

Alicen Stenner from Handbag.com: ‘We’re very pleased by the
announcement. The fact that somebody else is entering the
marketplace we chose to enter a year ago confirms that it’s
a marketplace very much worth exploiting. iVillage and
Tesco have a lot of experience behind them – the
competition that their partnership will create can only be
good for womens’ portals in general’.

Other sites we contacted (CharlotteStreet.com, and
Freeserve’s iCircle.com, for instance) did not comment.
Perhaps they remember mother’s old adage: ‘if you can’t say
anything nice, don’t say anything at all’!


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