New York's iVillage has managed to survive the dot-com collapse by slashing costs, conserving cash and paddling beyond advertising into new revenue streams.

Chief Executive Doug McCormick might also say a laser-like focus on its female audience has been the key to weathering the shakeout. That means offering a range of multi-media content about topics they care about, such as health, motherhood, relationships, career and family. He would also point to sales management that stays hungry and creative with advertisers.

In the two years since McCormick took over as CEO (since Candice Carpenter's departure), he has led iVillage's makeover from struggling ad-supported Web site to multi-media company (The Newborn Channel for hospitals, Business Women's Network, Lamaze Publishing). And he's done it while slashing costs in the quest for profits.

All the while, McCormick has used the company's considerable cash to acquire a rival's base (women.com) and purchase a direct marketing company (promotions.com) in order to improve marketing to its monthly audience of 20 million visitors. The company also launched new premium services including paid seminars, iVillage-branded vitamins and iVillage-branded books. The latest? An iVillage ISP.

AtNewYork.com recently chatted with McCormick, who helped found women's cable channel Lifetime during his 27-year media career. Following are edited excerpts of the discussion, including the company's new iVillageAccess.com ISP and its "no-pop-ups" policy.

Q: Last summer the company became the first to say it would no longer accept third-party "pop-up" advertisements, leading the way for others such as AOL (and MSN) who have followed suit. With ad dollars so dear, how are you replacing those revenues?

Well, first, it's nice to be able to be a trend-setter (about discontinuing pop-up ads). I like to think we make a good living out of being very responsible with our audience. The interest from advertisers (since the no pop-up decision) has been growing inversely in relation to pop-ups going away. The real key for us is to figure out what our customer and user wants. If people (on the site) hate pop-ups, we'll protect them from that type of advertising.

We can offer advertisers other services to help them get their message out, such as coupon (offers) over the Web. Our sales department has lots of experience in marketing to and with women. They understand the dynamic that helps move products, and how a web site that does it right can be successful at that. Many of us in the company have been at this now for many years. We have a deep and wide body of knowledge about how to make advertising more effective.

Q: Can you offer examples?

First, we work to better educate the advertising community with good, scientific reasons about a media buy to increase reach. A lot of advertising schedules (in other media) can get set into diminishing returns (in the crowded broadcast marketplace). We explain that if they swap out some of their television money, they can reach people with a new in-depth message. It's a key way to reason with advertisers, to show them how to improve their reach.

Second, we make sure we're innovative with our formats. For example, our "interquizzals" use interactivity to ask users about 12-15 questions about topics they find interesting, which then leads to a little commercial from a client. Advertisers say this makes sense. If the content is about exercise, a related product (advertisement) comes up. It's a nice continuum with content and context, and we have huge online resources for this. It's not just a mechanical way of showing an ad. It's a way of showing how well it can work, and how it can help advertisers solve problems online. In media, one size does not fit all. You have to tailor the message to the user.

Q: Those "interquizzals" sound like a lot like pop-ups though. Even if they're in-house rather than from third-parties, wouldn't your audience give you heat for using them?

No. We didn't hear anything like that at all. First, the "interquizzal" is offered in context of where you're looking. It comes up in context (to the section), rather than one out of nowhere and in no relation to what I'm doing -- offering me another opportunity to lower my credit card payments. How many times do I have to say no to that?

But if it's a quiz about baby food, within context of content about babies, we haven't had any resistance to that at all.

Q: The company now sells iVillage-branded vitamins, its got iVillage-branded lines of books in the works. Premium products helped boost revenues by 20 percent during the second quarter alone. Now, an iVillage-branded ISP? And on dial-up only? Sounds risky.

First, none of these initiatives involve a lot of cash coming out of our pocket. The underpinning of our philosophy is to take our brand name and extend it into other areas. We're turning a great brand into good businesses. This is one more part of our businesses, the books, vitamins, the extended iVillage market.

The iVillage ISP is one more part of that. It's one extra thing we offer. When we began our study about the ISP offering, we found people had a great deal of frustration with ISPs, over paying $23, $23 bucks a month. For people who use the Web for e-mail, checking stock quotes, it just makes a lot of sense to go with a simpler service.

The audience we're competing for knows the iVillage brand stands for a lot. They're looking for simplicity and affinity, they're kind of the proud of their iVillage association. If they're going to buy it, why not buy it from people they trust? And its cheaper at $17.95 a month, or $15.95 if you sign up for a year.

The iVillage user is a woman who is very busy. She uses the Internet as a utility and a tool, in a very different way than men. We're offering something for people not interested in a lot of bells and whistles. It has email, spam filter, an easy way to move e-mail and buddy list members. We just want to make things simple.

Broadband could be on the drawing table, depending on how this goes. We own a load of programming so I think there's a great deal that we could do with content, such as with our Newborn Channel.

Q: By asking them to pay, don't you risk eating into your loyal base of users who enjoy the free e-mail, chat boards and content?

We still offer free e-mail in addition to the ISP. It's not as though all of our content is going behind the ISP firewall. If I started an iVillage magazine, it wouldn't affect my core business. It would be another way to leverage our relationship with our audience.

I think the ISP is the same as cable companies that offer premium content. People know if they want to get something extra they have to pay for it. We're not abandoning the free model at all. A place that exists on ads alone is not going to be able to be as competitive and offer great content. So we keep adding things, like digital stores. We're still selling seminars to our monthly visitors who use the site for free, but it's very possible that the seminar will be made free to our ISP customers.

I learned a long time ago to never compete with anybody who can't afford to lose. We're moving into this in a very prudent way.