As Internet use skyrockets in the Chinese-speaking world, a Silicon Valley start-up is trying to tap into a potentially vast market: Chinese women.
Redskirt.com, which launched in December, is a Chinese-language portal attempting to create an online community for women in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States.
Following the lead of such U.S. women's sites as iVillage and Women.com, Taiwanese founders Blanca Li and Samuel Chen started the company last year to meet the unique needs of Chinese women.
"Chinese women tend to be more conservative and shy, so the Internet really provides a good communication channel for them," says Li, who helped design websites for several Silicon Valley firms before starting her own.
Redskirt offers chat rooms, discussion forums, and expert advice in communities such as Careers and Money, Astrology, Beauty and Fashion, and Love and Sex, which is the most popular.
Li says the website provides a place where Chinese women can discuss issues such as divorce, domestic violence, or sexual harassment that they may not feel comfortable talking about openly. The Internet provides an outlet for women who are reluctant to seek outside help for personal problems they find embarrassing, she says.
"American women are already used to this open public discussion," Li says. "Don't forget we have talk shows here, a lot of them. So you're already used to this format where people talk about their private things in public. But not in the Chinese world. With 5,000 years of cultural values, you still have some burdens."
Li, who attended college in Taiwan before earning a master's degree in hospitality management at Purdue University, decided to start the website in late 1998 because there were few Chinese-language sites that appealed specifically to women.
In January 1999, Li teamed up with Chen, a Web consultant, to create the site, which was originally called Blancaca.com.
Since then, the number of Chinese-speaking Internet users has grown dramatically, particularly in mainland China, where the number of users mushroomed from 2.1 million in 1998 to 8.9 million in 1999, according to a report published in January by the China Internet Network Information Center, a non-profit organization modeled after InterNIC in the U.S.
In Taiwan, the number of women online has almost reached parity with men, with 45 percent of women using the Net and 55 percent of men, Li says.
In mainland China, women still lag behind men in Internet usage, but as the market matures, Li believes women will catch up, following the millions of American women who have embraced the Internet over the past few years.
Chinese-language websites proliferated as Net usage exploded. Redskirt's competitors now include Beijing-based Yesee.com and Hercafe.com in Taipei.
Redskirt's founders chose to plant company headquarters in Silicon Valley because they believe it's the best place to build a global brand that reaches beyond local tastes and prejudices.
In February, the company opened an office in Taiwan, and it plans to start branches in Beijing, Hong Kong, and Singapore this year. Eventually, Li says there will be four different versions of the website with content specifically tailored to China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the U.S.
But the company faces a number of potential stumbling blocks in tackling China's burgeoning Internet market, especially the Chinese government's ever-changing policies on Internet content. Although the website doesn't delve into news and politics -- verboten topics on the mainland -- government censors may be wary of freewheeling discussions about love and sex.
"China's situation is still very unclear and vague now, especially for the Internet content providers," Li says. "A lot of things are still censored and prohibited, so it's kind of risky to just go in there without knowing what will be censored out first."
Still, Li believes the Net will be a unifying force for Chinese women around the globe. She hopes her website will bring together millions of women who share cultural values as well as problems like overbearing mother-in-laws and unfaithful husbands.
"The Chinese are all over the place," Li says. "The Internet is really a place that can link all the Chinese together."
