Almost Half of Women in their Fourties Use Social Networks

A recent eMarketer report of a SheSpeaks survey revealed that more than 40% of women in their fourties had a social networking profile. Out of all the women surveyed, 46% used social networks.

Aliza Freud, CEO of SheSpeaks, commented in a statement, “40-somethings are active users and members of online social networks. These women have started to use the Web and social networks in ways that mirror the rest of their lives.”

Gmail Adds Task List Feature

After creating a laundry list of geeky Gmail add-ons (such as Mail Goggles, which requires users to answer math problems before enabling them to send out emails late at night on weekends- thereby preventing “drunken mailing”), Gmail finally offers a useful tool for women on the go. The Gmail Task List appears under Labs in the Settings section. Enabling Tasks creates a link under Contacts. Users can add, rearrange, and cross out tasks. They create multiple lists and add tasks directly from emails. Additional information, such as notes and due dates, can be associated with tasks. And although, as Erick Schonfeld of Tech Crunch points out, useful features like sharing/emailing task lists and syncing to Google Calendar are not available, the Task List is an easy way to keep track of errands without having to use an external site or email them to oneself.

Stylehop Provides Fashion Shopping Engine with Consumer Ratings

At Stylehop, fashion conscious women can shop, rate items of clothing, play games, and earn points that they can use as rebates to their purchases. The idea behind Stylehop is that the most valuable and relevant fashion advice for a woman does not come from New York, LA or celebrities, but from a woman’s fashion peers. Their goal is to become the Zagat of fashion- a shopping engine with robust, filterable consumer ratings.



Stylehop could have easily created a boring, Amazon-like ratings engine. Instead, they created fun, addictive, lightweight social games and quizzes to drive engagement and build the foundation for a robust, ratings-based shopping engine. The games prompt women to provide a five-star rating for each item presented, creating the star ranking data that feeds StyleHop’s shopping engine and allowing it to generate a substantial amount of ratings for a variety of items. Another catalyst to drive engagement is the points system, where women are rewarded for activities like reviewing styles, filling out their profile, etc. The points can be used towards rebates on items purchased through the site. Additionally, Stylehop allows results to be filterable not only by brand and product attributes but also by whom you want providing your five-star rankings.

More Women than Men Watch Online Video

According to a recent Nielsen study, online video viewers skew towards women. 55% of US women watch online video, compared with 45% of US men. The same study showed nearly the exact same demographic spread for male versus female TV viewers. However, more men than women watch video on their mobile phones.

Coolspotters Connects Pop Culture’s People, Places, and Things

A community for pop culture junkies, Coolspotters shows users the latest celebrity products, places, and brands. Clicking on the iPhone, for example, shows related celebrities (Britney Spears, Samantha Ronson), entertainment (Sex & the City), products (MacBook pro), events, brands, books, and art. Users can become a fan of the product, add a new associated item, upload photos or videos, and even add the product to a list. The site also works in reverse, allowing users to see the products used, clothes worn, and places frequented individual celebrities.

Gossip blogs, magazines, and TV shows have been identifying stars’ fashion, cars, and product choices for years. However, there are very few places on the web that aggregate that information. Coolspotters offers a unique concept- searching for products by the celebrities who are using them and vice versa- and they do it all with user-generated content.

WhataLovelyName.com Offers User-Friendly Baby Name Site

With its streamlined design and user-friendly site, Whatalovelyname.com offers expectant mothers (and fathers) a fun and easy way to search for baby names. Users can search through the requisite list of baby names based on ethnic and religious traditions, and also look through a comprehensive list of celebrity’s baby names.

The fun begins, however, when users can select from a list of dispositions- such as adventurous, happy, and strong, etc. A disposition can be selected individually, and combinations among dispositions can be created. Users can also search separately for boy names and girl names. Explanations for individual names can be found, as well as alternative iterations of the name, tags, and a link to Google search results. Names can also be saved to a user’s favorites. The sleek design distinguishes WhataLovelyName, making it a welcome change from the large group of busy, difficult to navigate baby name sites.

Yahoo Buzz! Adds Updates, Continues to be Female-Friendly Alternative to Digg

Yahoo Buzz!, which launched last winter, recently added new features, solidifying its role as a mainstream alternative to Digg, a social bookmarking site notorious for its "frat-boy" content. Like other social bookmarking sites, Buzz allows users to share links and vote on articles in a variety of categories. What makes Yahoo Buzz unique is its focus on the mainstream, focusing on categories like Entertainment, Politics, Lifestyle, and Health, among others. The recent updates on Buzz allow users to see the stories that people in one’s contact list are buzzing up. Also, Buzz votes are now part of user profiles, so users can see what stories a particular individual has Buzzed up or down, as well as stats like how many times someone has been the original person to submit an article and the number of comments they’ve left. Buzz also updated their commenting capabilities, allowing users give thumbs up or down to individual comments and showing threaded replies. All of these updates are strikingly similar to Digg’s functionality, positioning Buzz even more as a female-friendly Digg.com.