The dot-com bust erased anti-capitalist perspectives from mainstream women’s web content.

Evidence

Mainstream women’s sites like iVillage and Oxygen hired several webzine veterans to write and produce their content, probably due to their early adopter status and comfort with the web medium. Eventually, the early in de pen dent webzines petered out, or turned into blogs, and the most popular sites for women remained those about “online horoscopes, sex tips, celebrities and parenting advice.” The anti-capitalist, multicultural perspectives disappeared entirely from mainstream women’s sites. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 95

Categorization

• QUESTION: How much of the movement from radical webzines to commercial blogs was driven by advertising economics versus audience taste shifts? Worth chasing the iVillage-Oxygen hiring pattern.