Women's WIRE

Nancy Rhine had imagined creating a women's space online in the early 1990s.[1] Rhine and Pack met at the Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (The WELL), where Rhine worked as the site's co-director.[1] Pack's first experience going online had happened in 1991, and while she enjoyed the experience, Pack noticed that there was a lack of women's voices online.[2] When Pack posted on The WELL about starting a network for women online, Rhine contacted her about her idea.[3] Pack and Rhine worked together to develop and launch Women's WIRE in 1992.[4][5] WIRE stood for Women's Information Resource & Exchange.[6] Pack helped provide the funds of $100,000 she raised from family and friends, and Rhine, who was a self-taught computer expert, developed the site.[1][7] They also involved a Silicon Valley consultant, Marleen McDaniel.[8] When Rhine and Pack began the project, a male representative warned them against creating Women's WIRE, saying "there wasn't a market for women".[9] Ignoring his advice, Women's WIRE became the first Internet company to target women, launching in October 1993 with 500 members.[10][11]

At first the organization was only known as WIRE and had secured the address wire.net.[12] However, Wired Magazine felt that this was too close to their name and the address they used which was wired.com.[12] The two groups agreed to settle out of court with Wired agreeing to help pay half of migration costs to a new address and WIRE agreeing to change their name to Women's WIRE.[12] Rhine said the decision to settle was based on money so that Women's WIRE could focus on growing their business.[12]

At first, Women's WIRE was run out of Pack's home.[13] At the time, it was the only "online service focused on women".[8] Later, they moved to an office space in South San Francisco with an all-women staff.[14] 1994, users, 90% of whom were women, paid $15 a month to access Women's WIRE.[8] Also in 1994, Women's WIRE promoted McDaniel to the role of president of the organization where McDaniel helped transition the site to the Internet.[8][15] As the Internet grew, Women's WIRE became Women.com in 1995.[4][2] Women's WIRE migrated to a space on CompuServe and to the web address Women.com.[16] They moved the offices from San Francisco to San Mateo.[17] Rhine left the organization in 1996 to develop content for women at America Online.[15]

It became a "one-stop Web portal where women could network" and more.[18] By 1996, Women's WIRE employees created content that was seen by 300,000 visitors a month.[15] The site was supported by advertising.[7] In 2000, approximately 80% of the site's revenue came from advertising alone.[19]

In 1997, Pack authored a book, Women's Wire Web Directory, to help women navigate online spaces and to get them involved in Women's WIRE.[20] By 1999, they were supported by sponsors including Microsoft, Toyota, IBM, Hallmark and Bloomberg.[21] Early in 1999, Women.com also took over HomeArts.com, part of Hearst Corporation.[22]

In 1999, however, stock prices fell significantly in the dot-com crash, and Women.com was purchased by iVillage in 2001.[18] The purchase deal, which included cash and stock, was worth $47 million and merged Women.com and iVillage.[23] The merger itself created "the world's largest and most comprehensive destination for women on the web" at the time.[23]

Women's WIRE was developed to "become an international communications network focused on women's issues."[8] Content on the site changed frequently to keep readers interested.[7] The site had "pleasing but spare graphics," according to Entertainment Weekly in 1996, and it loaded quickly.[24] Sections of the site included questions from readers.[7] Women's WIRE provided links to job listings also provided sources that could help women develop their careers and job hunting skills.[25] The site was also known for having a sense of humor about the topics that it covered.[26] As the 1996 Summer Olympic Games came up, Women's WIRE joined with Women's Sports + Fitness to provided coverage of the event and also included articles about fitness, training and sports.[27] Women's WIRE, now known as Women.com, had continued to expand their range of content in 1999 in order to bring in more visitors to the site.[21] Women.com had exclusive partnerships to display material from Hearst magazines.[21] Women.com also added content from Harlequin Books to their site in 1999.[28] Plans to allow users to purchase books direction from the publisher through Women.com were also underway.[28] By 2000, there were over 100,000 pages of content provided by Women.com.[29] They also offered newsletters and the ability for users to create their own homepage.[29]

Additionally, Women's WIRE provided a sense of community to users.[30] It was a place where women could share their concerns and find advice about their problems from other women.[3] Resources relating to help for domestic abuse were also available.[14] Women were able to mobilize politically through Women's WIRE, sharing information and encouraging women to call politicians.[14] The site was more radical early on, reflecting the preferences of co-founder Nancy Rhine, who wanted to emphasize community and feminist principles.[31]

When Women's WIRE started, it was a subscriber-based online service with around 1,300 subscribers.[5] Women's WIRE was initially run on software called First Class BBS.[11] Women logged in either using a local number in San Francisco or used telnet.[9] If users needed help connecting to Women's WIRE, they could receive support from their own customer service.[11] In 1994, Rhine and co-founder Ellen Pack had to make a decision about moving to the World Wide Web.[32] In October 1995, Women's WIRE switched over to CompuServe.[33] Women's WIRE was now on version 2.6 and users could access the site using a diskette and CompuServe.[1] Version 2.6 provided client access via CompuServe and a dial-up connection.[1] Women using version 2.6 had access to email, chat rooms, newswires and more.[1] In 1996, Women's WIRE moved away from a bulletin board service and encouraged subscribers to join a forum set up on CompuServe.[15] Visitors could also go the web address Women.com to access content.[16]

• Systers

• Archive of Women's Wire (October 22, 1996)