The Internet has finally begun what it was destined to do — fragment our news by community along fault lines such as hyperlocal geographies, lifestyles, worldviews, and personal interests. And in retrospect, it was entirely predictable that among the first areas we would witness this was in the Internet’s reinvention and perfection of women’s magazines. For decades, the stay-home-Mom, “women’s service” magazines were a mainstay of the publishing business, with each of the “seven sisters” (Better Homes and Gardens, Family Circle, Good Housekeeping, Ladies’ Home Journal, McCall’s, Redbook, Woman’s Day) reflecting a slightly different audience, focus, and attitude. For the younger, unmarried, and urban, there were the more edgy Glamour, Cosmopolitan and Mademoiselle.

But in the new incarnation of women’s magazines on the web, we are seeing revolutionary new developments that are creating a new business model — the “Blogging Mall.” With the enormous amount of new information now available on the Internet, women’s audiences seem most interested in drilling-down deeper into the areas that interest them most, whether it is fashion, beauty, shopping, lifestyle, health & wellness, celebrities/entertainment, or teens. To meet this need for depth, leading women’s site Glam (H/T Jeff Jarvis) is acting more like a shopping mall operator than a publisher – planting a few, topic-specific “anchor store” sites it owns and operates itself, then letting the rest of the storefronts and kiosks fill-up with quality bloggers with which it strikes revenue-sharing advertising deals. Women who enjoy window-shopping for fashion and beauty can now go Windows-shopping for information and like-minded communities. Glam seems to know what a girl wants.