science

Women's WIRE

Women's WIRE is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Women's WIRE rather than just read about it. In short: Women's WIRE (later Women.com) was the first online space and the first Internet company to target women. It was founded in California first as simply WIRE in 1992, an acronym that stood for Women's Information Resource & Exchange, and could be accessed via telnet for a subscription.

Key takeaways

Women's WIRE belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Women's WIRE to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Women's WIRE from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Women's WIRE (later Women.com) was the first online space and the first Internet company to target women. It was founded in California first as simply WIRE in 1992, an acronym that stood for Women's Information Resource & Exchange, and could be accessed via telnet for a subscription. Women's WIRE was conceived of by self-taught computer programmer, Nancy Rhine and then co-founded with entrepreneur, Ellen Pack. Later, Women's WIRE migrated to the World Wide Web and became known as Women.com. The site drew millions of visitors a month, with around 300,000 visitors per day. It provided users with email access, community functions such as chatrooms and forums, access to news, advice, and information. In the dot.com bubble of 1999, Women's WIRE began to suffer financial losses and was eventually acquired by iVillage in 2001.

History Nancy Rhine had imagined creating a women's space online in the early 1990s. Rhine and Pack met at the Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (The WELL), where Rhine worked as the site's co-director. 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. When Pack posted on The WELL about starting a network for women online, Rhine contacted her about her idea. Pack and Rhine worked together to develop and launch Women's WIRE in 1992. WIRE stood for Women's Information Resource & Exchange. 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. They also involved a Silicon Valley consultant, Marleen McDaniel. 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". Ignoring his advice, Women's WIRE became the first Internet company to target women, launching in October 1993 with 500 members. At first the organization was only known as WIRE and had secured the address wire.net. However, Wired Magazine felt that this was too close to their name and the address they used which was wired.com. 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. Rhine said the decision to settle was based on money so that Women's WIRE could focus on growing their business. At first, Women's WIRE was run out of Pack's home. At the time, it was the only "online service focused on women". Later, they moved to an office space in South San Francisco with an all-women staff. 1994, users, 90% of whom were women, paid $15 a month to access Women's WIRE. 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. As the Internet grew, Women's WIRE became Women.com in 1995. Women's WIRE migrated to a space on CompuServe and to the web address Women.com. They moved the offices from San Francisco to San Mateo. Rhine left the organization in 1996 to develop content for women at America Online. It became a "one-stop Web portal where women could network" and more. By 1996, Women's WIRE employees created content that was seen by 300,000 visitors a month. The site was supported by advertising. In 2000, approximately 80% of the site's revenue came from advertising alone. 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. By 1999, they were supported by sponsors including Microsoft, Toyota, IBM, Hallmark and Bloomberg. Early in 1999, Women.com also took over HomeArts.com, part of Hearst Corporation. In 1999, however, stock prices fell significantly in the dot-com crash, and Women.com was purchased by iVillage in 2001. The purchase deal, which included cash and stock, was worth $47 million and merged Women.com and iVillage. The merger itself created "the world's largest and most comprehensive destination for women on the web" at the time.

Content Women's WIRE was developed to "become an international communications network focused on women's issues." Content on the site changed frequently to keep readers interested. The site had "pleasing but spare graphics," according to Entertainment Weekly in 1996, and it loaded quickly. Sections of the site included questions from readers. Women's WIRE provided links to job listings also provided sources that could help women develop their careers and job hunting skills. The site was also known for having a sense of humor about the topics that it covered. 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. 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. Women.com had exclusive partnerships to display material from Hearst magazines. Women.com also added content from Harlequin Books to their site in 1999. Plans to allow users to purchase books direction from the publisher through Women.com were also underway. By 2000, there were over 100,000 pages of content provided by Women.com. They also offered newsletters and the ability for users to create their own homepage. Additionally, Women's WIRE provided a sense of community to users. It was a place where women could share their concerns and find advice about their problems from other women. Resources relating to help for domestic abuse were also available. Women were able to mobilize politically through Women's WIRE, sharing information and encouraging women to call politicians. The site was more radical early on, reflecting the preferences of co-founder Nancy Rhine, who wanted to emphasize community and feminist principles.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Women's WIRE

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Women's WIRE claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Women's WIRE before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Women's WIRE ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Women's WIRE

In research: Women's WIRE appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Women's WIRE in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Women's WIRE is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1992 establishments in California, 2001 disestablishments in California, American women's websites, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Women's WIRE outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Women's WIRE in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Women's WIRE means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Women's WIRE out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Women's WIRE in simple terms?

Why does Women's WIRE matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Women's WIRE?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Women's WIRE.