• The New York Times, Thursday, August 14, 2008 11:15 AM

The New York Times reports that sites aimed at women are hot, having grown 35% in the last year, according to figures from comScore. In fact, no other sector besides politics has grown so fast: In July, women's sites had 84 million visitors, 27% more than the same month last year, the research firm said.

Naturally, advertisers are following, having purchased 4.4. billion display ads on women's sites in May--more than children, teenagers or families--comScore said. "Moms are the decision-makers of the household as far as purchases are concerned," said Chris Actis, vice president and digital director at MediaVest.

The boom in Web sites geared toward women is attracting the attention of investors and potential acquirers. Just last week, cable giant Comcast paid $125 million for the shopping and entertainment newsletter service Daily Candy. In July, Peacock Equity, the venture capital arm of NBC Universal and GE, invested $5 million in BlogHer, a network of 2,200 blogs for women. And finally, Glam Media, a network of 650 women's sites, has managed to raise more than $114 million from big-time Silicon Valley VCs.

Read the whole story at The New York Times »