Advertisers have long been desperate to woo women on the net with online magazines such as CharlotteStreet and Beme.

But while these websites have had mixed fortunes, the web has proved irresistible to female entrepreneurs.

Now a Horsham woman has launched a networking group for new media businesswomen - 4 Women.

It started off as a few pages on a website but it has met with an enthusiastic response.

Its founder Julie Hamilton has planned a series of seminars and forums on getting started in e-business.

The group will prove the seven-day week worked by lastminute.com's Martha Lane Fox is not the only model for a successful web tycoon.

Ms Hamilton said she wanted to target women working from home who aim to split their time between running their businesses and running their families.

She said: "There are a lot of women who have to fit work around their home and kids.

"They don't have time to find out a lot of information. I'm doing the research for them."

New technology has made getting into business easier than ever for women with children in tow, said Ms Hamilton.

"You can set up a firm with a PC and a telephone line. People think you're a big company."

After a year spent planning the enterprise, Ms Hamilton has already already secured the promise of a speaker from Virgin and hopes to stage her first events as soon as possible.

Men have not been totally excluded from the new group, although it is aimed at female workers.

Ms Hamilton said the need for a woman-only group was pressing because women are still more likely to stay at home with children than men and this throws up special challenges.

The web's short history has proved Ms Hamilton may well be on to a winner.

Net statistics firm NetValue clocked 4.4 million British women online earlier this year - 43.5 per cent of the country's browsers.

Away from the much publicised successes of Martha Lane Fox, women such as Zoom.co.uk managing director Eva Pascoe have played leading roles in new media.

Britain has long boasted a female e-commerce minister in Patricia Hewitt. Closer to home, Wired Sussex, the internet entrepreneur support group, has an all-female staff.

Jo Grant set up her internet design company Chickweed two years ago from her Hove home.

Since then, she has produced websites for leading banking and insurance firms while bringing up her two children, 11-year-old Calum and eight-year-old Clare.

She went into new media after a career as a psychiatric nurse and has not looked back since.

She said: "You can work from home and you don't have to worry about childcare."

Despite the successful shift from wards to websites, the learning curve was steep and Ms Grant said a helpful network would have been useful.

She said: "When I started, if any one asked could I do it I said 'yes' and then learnt to do it."

Being your own boss can also be lonely though. Ms Grant admitted: "You do feel isolated working from home.

"It would be good to bounce ideas off people."

The all-woman internet networking group has already proved hugely popular on both sides of the Atlantic.

Webgrrls started five years ago in New York and now boasts 30,000 members across the world.

The British branch was launched in September last year by 12 people.

Now 400 regularly turn up for its events in a London cybercafe.

Zuzanna Gierlinska, events organiser for the group, said the numbers prove the need for such a group. Home-working has been a boon for freelancing female web designers, she said.

Webgrrls was designed to be easier going than its mixed sex counterparts.

Ms Gierlinska said: "People can ask stupid questions here.

"You can pick brains at the most basic level."

While other internet groups such as First Tuesday have been aimed at pairing web entrepreneurs and investors, Ms Gierlinska said Webgrrls was meant to be a more gentle experience.

"It's an easier, softer environment. Women will feel hindered at somewhere like First Tuesday."

She said while men dominated the technical side of the web and women often worked in marketing and creative roles, this may have been due to choice rather than prejudice.

She said: "Men prefer to fiddle with machines. We prefer to create beautiful web pages."

Of course not every woman entrepreneur wants to go to an all-woman networking group.

But Ms Gierlinska said the group has had few complaints from men objecting to an all-female membership.

They are allowed to come along to meetings if accompanied by a member.

One male gatecrasher invaded a meeting to tell the collected female entrepreneurs men's brains were bigger than women's brains.

But as Ms Gierlinska noted, he may have disproved his own point.

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www.webgrrls.co.uk