Oprah.Com

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OPRAH.COM

Oprah.com, launched by world renowned talk show host Oprah Winfrey in June 1997, operates as part of the Oxygen Media Group's online division. It is the official Web site of The Oprah Winfrey Show and O, The Oprah Magazine. The site also offers information on Oprah's Book Club and Oprah's Angel Network and vows to help women "Live Their Best Life" by giving advice on relationships, food, mind and body, and lifestyles. Web surfers visiting Oprah.comthe site averages more than 155 million hits per month and 3,000 e-mails per daycan subscribe to Winfrey's magazine, see post-show discussions via streaming video, write in an online journal, chat with other online Oprah fans, and even e-mail Oprah Winfrey herself.

The Oprah Winfrey Show, which debuted in 1986, gained unprecedented popularity within a few years of its first airing and quickly became the most successful and highest-rated talk show in all of television. In 1995, Winfrey teamed up with America Online (AOL) to provide her online viewers with Oprah Online, an AOL site dedicated to information about her show. Two years later, ABC Internet Group and Winfrey's company, Harpo Productions, created Oprah.com to provide Web surfers information on the show, its guests, and a variety of other topics including its famed book club and the Angel Network. The site also allowed those who could not watch the show during the day access to information about its topics and provided an easy way for viewers to communication with the show's staff.

In 1998, Winfrey formed Oxygen Media LLC, a company dedicated to providing entertainment and information to modern women. Oxygen Media included Harpo Group LLC, GBL LLC, and Carsey-Werner-Mandabach LLC. The media group eventually included a cable network and several online properties including Thriveonline, Moms Online, Girls On, and ka-Ching. Oprah.com joined the Oxygen.com group of Web sites in August 1999.

Oprah.com 's popularity continued to grow as more women began using the Internet. According to Forrester Research, 29 percent of all American womencompared to 39 percent of American menwere using the Internet on a regular basis in 1999. By 2005, the firm predicted that more than 71.2 million women would be online. Forrester also predicted that the average annual growth rate over the next five years for women would be 19 percentcompared to 13 percent for men. As more women went online, researchers found that sites most often patronized by women were those relating to health and quality-of-life issues. Oprah.com was able to use the success of the popular television show to tap into the increasing number of female Web surfers, turning the Web site into the one of the most popular online destinations for women. In fact, Winfrey herself encouraged women to become Web savvy by promoting the Oxygen production "Oprah Goes Online" on Oprah.com. The 12-part series detailed the steps she and friend Gayle King took in learning how to use the Internet themselves.

Oprah.com, primarily known for its informative Web content, slowly entered the arena of e-commerce when Winfrey began using Oprah.com to promote O, The Oprah Magazine. By late 2000, visitors to the site were able to subscribe to the magazine and hear messages from Winfrey in specialized sections of the Web site that included Here We Go, What I Know for Sure, and Oprah's Cuts, which featured excerpts from magazine interviews. The Oprah's Book Club section of the site also was popular. It was rated as one of the top 10 places to find literary information on the Web by Galaxy.com, a vertical Internet directory. While visitors were not able to purchase book club selections directly from Oprah.com, many used the information on the site to make purchases elsewhere.Oprah.com also featured the O List, a myriad of Winfrey's favorite products including everything from vases to bath salts to tin plates. The list included links to the product's Web site or information on how and where the listing could be purchased.

In June 2000, Oprah.com was rated the top TV show Web site by PC Data. Winfrey was contracted through the 2003-2004 television season, securing the Web site's position as a leading online destination for women, which like Winfrey's daytime show continued to work toward her vision of empowering women across the globe.

FURTHER READING:

"Data Zone: Top TV Show Web Sites." Electronic Media. August 7, 2000.

Donahue, Dick, and Daisy Maryles. "Oprah Yet Again." Publishers Weekly. October 18, 1999.

Greenberg, Paul A. "Gender Gap Narrows As Women Take to the Net." E-Commerce Times. November 9, 1999. Available from www.ecommercetimes.com.

"Need an Oprah Fix? Now She's on Your PC." BusinessWeek Online. November 5, 1998. Available from www.businessweek.com.

"The Oprah Winfrey Show Fact Sheet." Chicago, IL: Oprah.com, 2001. Available from www.oprah.com.

Schneider, Mica. "Go to Oxygen.com If You Can Never Get Enough Oprah." BusinessWeek Online. November 24,1999. Available from www.businessweek.com.

"Top Ten Literature Web Sites Announced." PR Newswire. September 29, 2000.

SEE ALSO: Women and the Internet