One of Oxygen's first acts was to acquire a staff of veteran grrrl zinesters with lots of Web savvy. Besides hiring cred-heavy editors and writers from Bust magazine (founders of the "New Girl Order"), Laybourne also purchased indie webzines like Girls On Film and BreakUp Girl. Younger women were optimistic that the cable channel and Web sites would start developing content with an edgier, hipper sensibility than Women.com or iVillage. But two years later, Oxygen.com has let its acquisitions languish; and rather than developing any unique properties for its Web site, Oxygen.com now consists of a haphazard group of sites (including two dedicated to Oprah, one to "keeping it simple," another to "thinking like a girl"). Most of the sites appear to be half-empty or else mere place holders for Oxygen's cable TV shows. As for the cable channel: You're lucky if you've seen it, as it's only available in a handful of markets.

The exodus of a number of key Oxygen staffers was swift, including several show hosts and Web site producers. Last month, Oxygen.com's editor in chief, Sarah Bartlett, resigned; according to the Industry Standard, she was swiftly followed by Ellyn Spragins, V.P. of editorial; Deborah Stead, editor of Oxygen's literary site the Read; and three executive Web producers.

Why did Bartlett leave? Well, I can't know for sure, since I was unable to interview her, but I can take a guess. When she started the job, she told the Industry Standard she had come to Oxygen wanting to produce, as she put it, "really serious, hard-charging journalism ... and act as an advocate for women." But it's difficult to glean any hard-charging journalism from the sea of Oprah homages, fitness tips and relationship columns that you'll find on Oxygen.com.

Instead, staffers found a schizophrenic view of what content for women should be. As one former Oxygen staffer who requested anonymity explains it, the mix of zinesters and TV producers could never decide what the company was or who it was targeting. "Are you a women's property or a feminist women's property?" she posits as the main question facing new women's media companies. "Oxygen never knew whether it was a women's -- bring on the fashion and baby massage! -- or feminist -- bring on the Beijing plus five!"

Oxygen declined to comment on any of these issues. In fact, it is significant that no one wanted to speak to me for this story; no one from iVillage or Oxygen was willing to be interviewed about this subject. Heidi Swanson, founder of ChickClick, said she wanted to put her departure behind her; others who have left the various women's sites were unwilling to chat or difficult to locate. Those I did speak to requested anonymity -- because, most said, they still support the women's online publishing movement, respect their former co-workers and don't want to burn their bridges (even if they left disappointed). Some left for management reasons, others for ideological reasons; but clearly, it's an issue that many still feel strong about.

iVillage never had that problem. Of all the women's Web sites, it was the only one that was launched by a woman who wouldn't call herself a feminist. Instead, she was a hardened businesswoman who spoke of the women's communities on her sites as a commodity that needed to be "monetized." And, in turn, it was her ever-growing empire of baby clothing and pregnancy calendars, fad diets and personal shoppers that has proved to be the most popular (by a slim margin) women's Web site.

But with content sites no longer in investors' favor and losses growing exponentially higher, iVillage stock that once commanded $95.88 has plummeted down to around $7. Several executives left during the course of this year, culminating in late July when Carpenter was ejected from the company. Officially, she stepped down as CEO but remains as chairman of the board, although anonymous sources in unforgiving Silicon Alley stories say she was pushed out. Her position, ironically enough, is now being filled by a man. (iVillage didn't return repeated phone calls asking for comment.)

Women.com, which was always more edgy than iVillage, has been suffering from the market vagaries, too. What began in 1993 as a frank online discussion forum for savvy early-adopter women has become the place where you go to read Redbook, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping and a handful of other Hearst magazine Web sites. Although Women.com still has an editorial staff producing more woman-positive features (from on-the-floor coverage of the elections to advice for small-business owners), the company is being kept afloat by its more lightweight magazine partners. Even the smarter content has been diluted.

But the blame, perhaps, shouldn't be placed on Women.com's editors. There's a reason why Women.com these days seems to be so heavy on astrology and sex tips: It's because these are far and away the most popular features, despite Women.com's more thoughtful political and business coverage. "The reality is that the bread and butter of page views comes from sex and horoscopes -- it's the dirty little secret of any woman's site that that's where the traffic is," says a former Women.com editor. And to make matters worse, she says, "page views are put aside for beauty because that's where the advertisers were."

Although founders Ellen Pack and Marleen McDaniel are still holding strong at the top of Women.com, the site's original editorial team is mostly gone. Editor in chief Laurie Kretchmar departed this year; she's been replaced by Judy Coyne, who came from Glamour and New Woman and shrugs off concerns about the site's increasingly mainstream direction. "Magazines very often have to make a lot more choices about what they are going to offer; I've made some myself," Coyne says. "It's a great pleasure and a luxury to have an ability to do a larger variety of things. I don't think necessarily that there's been some big change of feminist philosophy of how to put [Women.com] together; but as it grows it encompasses a lot more things."

It was, say some former Women.com editors, an inevitable direction for the site to grow. "We might be the intellectual elite looking for a more broad mix, but you have to look at a bigger population," says one early Women.com editor who watched Women's Wire evolve over the years into a very different beast. "In the beginning the mission was to deliver smart intellectual stuff that makes women richer. And they still do it, but there's a lot more fluff around it."

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