Mujer Power.

Web investors play Romeo, but are they aiming too low?

MARIANA CAMINOTTI HAS A DAY JOB, A TODDLER AND ambitions. On top of an already full schedule, she stacks university classes. She's also drawn to the Web, even attending a recent Internet convention here. But, she says, her jaunts through cyberspace so far have been limited to late-night scannings of local newspapers online.

"It all sounds great, but who has the time?" complains a weary Caminotti, 25, as hostesses in silver lame space outfits herd convention-goers past banks of computers.

Latin America's dot-com entrepreneurs are undeterred. They're targeting over-committed but educated women like Caminotti on dozens of new Web sites. Solvent, computer-savvy professional women aged 20 to 35 are the demographic du jour of the Latin high-tech industry courted by sites with names like Conectadas.com, El Femenino.com and Divina.com.

Women's sites are booming, says Jorge Becerra, vice president of the Boston Consulting Group. But Becerra sees a shakeout in six months to a year, after which only a few sites will survive. That means sites must quickly show they have big traffic to attract sponsors and advertisers, warns analyst Barbara Ochoa of consulting firm Bain & Company "The truth is that most of them will collapse," she says, echoing Becerra. By September some women sites, including Conectadas.com and Divina.com, were shaving staff to get costs in line before the coming crunch. Divina.com VP Jorge Goytisolo says his site is working on a srategic deal to stay afloat, most likely as a women's channel for a large portal. "It's the only place to be if you're going to survive," he says "You need that rich uncle."

For the moment, however, regional entrepreneurs are hopeful that local women will flock to--and spend money at--their sites. The latina audience is a potential powerhouse: According to Holamujer.com, more than 125 million women throughout Latin America fall within their target age of 18-40, controlling a whopping 80% of household purchases. In the United States, half of an estimated 32.5 million Latino Internet users are women.

Setting up a women's Web site costs between US$500,000 to $1.5 million dollars. Earnings come from ads, e-commerce, subscriptions and sponsors. The expenditure is worthwhile if a site consistently reaches its target audience: Latin American women who surf the Web are upper middle class, follow fashion and pay attention to designer labels.

Women's power over domestic spending isn't the only thing attracting Internet entrepreneurs--they're also more responsible surfers. "They have fewer inhibitions in approaching new technology [and] are more responsible with the information they receive," says Gustavo Camacho, director of production for ElFemenino.com. "And, according to our polls, they entertain fewer hacker fantasies than men."

Readers, not surfers. The challenge facing Web page editors is to craft a site for women that encourages return visits. Many of the new sites offer an eclectic mix of articles ranging from fashion to finance. Others seem nothing more than reproductions of glossy women's magazines, featuring celebrity interviews, diets and fashion.

"The biggest mistake would be to underestimate this audience, their knowledge and their needs," says Monica Bistrain, a Miami-based e-business consultant. Web site editors readily admit there is no easy formula for determining what might catch the eye of busy women in the region.

"Within the usual subjects, what we try to do is not treat women like idiots by publishing weird things like the 'pumpkin diet' just to fill space, or stories on how to make up with your boyfriend after a fight," says Ramiro Perez Lastra, editor for the Argentine site of Holamujer.com.

His site recently featured a local theater review, an article on women and stress and a feature on the Chinese philosophy Feng Shui. The Web site Ellasavvy.com featured an article entitled "Your First Job," one on finance for women, and advice on inspiring loyalty and dedication among employees. Conectadas.com boasted an odder mix, with a feature on the cost of having a baby, an article titled "Menstruation, Is It Really Necessary?" and a feature on "What Supermachos Love."

The key is to remember women are multi-faceted, says Lynn Roberts, founder of Conectadas.com and a former CEO of Freedom Magazines International, which owns LATIN TRADE. "We are amazing entrepreneurs, but that doesn't mean we don't want to look fabulous and have our children feel terrific," Roberts says.

The glossy mag approach has its critics. "All this advice on how to be super-perfect is boring," says Thelma Galvez, a consultant on women's issues for the United Nation's Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean. In Mexico, political analyst Daniella Levy, who is blind, uses e-mail and the Internet for work but never delves into women's Web pages, although her computer has the technology to read the contents to her. "Those are more for the women getting their MMC degrees," she says, referring to the Spanish slang acronym Mientras-Me-Caso, a term given women who take college courses until they find a mate, then drop their career plans.

Nevertheless, a poll conducted by Elsitio.com of 4,000 Latin American women revealed that women online wanted articles on how improve their sex life--because they didn't dare ask anyone else about it. Women also asked for more photos of attractive men. "They said the men always got to look at women but never the other way around," says Lucia Suarez, content editor for EISitio.com's Mujer-Mujer channel. After articles on sex, the women polled wanted information about beauty and health, work and, finally, family.

One women's Web site recognized for providing networking and career opportunities is MujeryNegocios.com. The site recently won the European Economic Community's Stockholm Challenge award, given to ventures that benefit society. Founded by two female Argentine entrepreneurs in 1997, the Web site offers information and services for businesses managed by women. "The spirit of most of the women's Websites is to make up for the scarcity of time by allowing women to take courses online and take advantage of what the Internet has to offer," says MujeryNegocios founder Beatriz Calatayud.

In the end, however, it's up to women to give the Internet a different voice from that of women's magazines, says Raquel Turrubiates, a Mexican expert on chat sites at the University of Buenos Aires. "We have to break through the machismo of the Internet."