Jane Turns Reporter

Jane here...reporting from sunny Rochester, NY, on a Saturday morning-- oops-- afternoon, with some very interesting news.

First of all, Jane would like to thank all of our devoted readers...those kind souls who have clicked into Lip-sticking-- through bloglines or another feed reader, to see what Jane is up to lately-- as we notice that our stats are holding steady, despite our inability to get our act together this week. And, to all of our numerous, fond, delightful blogger friends, whom we have neglected all week, we offer apologies, with a promise of our return to your blogs in the coming weeks.

Jane hesitates to tempt Fate-- as Fate has been overly kind and generous this year-- hence, our attention to business affairs, and not necessarily to our blog.

Meanwhile, life goes on! This week Jane received numerous FYIs from good friends alerting us to this report from eMarketer: It's a Woman's Web.

Jane is tempted to say, "Duh!" Especially since the report notes that, "Females now make up 51.6% of the US online population, and that majority will become even more pronounced over the next five years."

Honestly! Jane would like all readers to write to eMarketer and tell them to check out our blog, and Kirsten Osolind's blog, and Michele Miller's blog, and Toby Bloomberg's blog, and Elana Centor's blog (do forgive us for not listing ALL of the great women's blogs)...and get true, up-to-date, current facts on what women do online! Facts that show that women have outnumbered men online for more than a year! The chart which accompanies eMarketer's article is worth noting:

It shows the predicted growth of Internet users by gender...Jane hopes you notice the rising numbers of women outnumbering men. Jane hopes you've been noticing it for a long time!

We thank eMarketer for proving our point, yet, we wonder...how many of you get it...really-- get it? Women are adopting the Internet as their place-- to chat, to meet, to shop, to complain, to browse, to read news, to promote their favorite shoes. Shouldn't you be...like, marketing to them actively?

Here's someone who is doing so, whether he knows it or not: from Market Wire, our favorite wire service, we found this fun news today: "Your Pet in a Coffee-Table Book, Adventury Story! The Perfect Mother's Day Gift."

Ken Halloway, a Smart Man Online if Jane has ever seen one, founded this neat site, and is now promoting this neat idea, to eager pet owners. Jane remembers mentioning recently that...women like pets. More than men.

A trip to this site reveals that, "Women Think Pets are the Cat's Meow." In fact, the site, designed for pet owners, gets into the human-pet bond and of women, says,

• Nearly 50 percent of women relied more on their pets for affection than their spouse or children.
• More than 40 percent of women said their pets understand their emotions and moods better than other family members.
• When asked if they were more likely to lose their temper with a family member or a pet, 67 percent of women said a family member.

Which means, Ken Halloway probably has a winner of an idea on his hands. Click over to his site at My Personal Pet Book and see if you agree.

What's not to like about that?

Comments

[Toby]

Yvonne - too frequently the people/things and yes, even blogs, we take for granted are those that we come to count on for excellence. Like Lip-sticking!

[Ken Halloway]

Hi - and thank you for the nice comments! Probably 90+% of our customers are women - (I'm assuming the cats and dogs aren't uploading their own pictures themselves). We do get some male customers - always with dogs - never cats, but clearly the ladies take more joy in their pets and showing them off in an adventure story-book. Regarding your comment "...women like pets, more than men..." - it's certainly understandable - i've never known a pet to cheat on it's owner, and how often do they come home drunk from a night out with the boys? Thanks again for visiting our site - it's a lot of fun making something that you know your customer absolutely treasures. Ken

[Michele Miller]

Yvonne, how could your stats NOT hold, let alone grow, with all the incredible posting you do? Man... I was going to blog about the internet news, but you beat me to it. In the spirit of blogging, I'm going to trackback to you in the next few days - like you say, it's a big "DUH!" when it comes to women and the internet. Wake up, business people!