Proctor and Gamble, long an innovator in consumer marketing, is creating online forums for women, hoping to gain greater insight into their purchasing habits.

P&G is creating the online forums around issues who women are passionate about, such as breast cancer and careers, and then monitoring the communication of the members to gain greater insight into their wants and needs, Business Week reports. P&G is also creating product promotions as well as MySpace pages for certain brands.

So far, P&G has created two such sites. One will be based around The People's Choice Awards but will feature online forums and other social media features year-round. The second site is called Capessa, launched late in 2006 and produced through a partnership with the ZiZo Group and Yahoo.

On Capessa, women can discuss issues that interest them and submit personal stories related to those issues. P&G will contact some users about doing a professional interview based on the content the women produce.