Targeting gray because they’ll stay while the younger easily go away |
Loading ...If I’m to believe the following New York Times article Silicon Valley is now targeting baby boomers and senior citizens or “Facebook — with wrinkles” as they say, because those [sarcasm] stodgy [/sarcasm] gray haired folk like me tend to stick around longer. I’m sparing readers a picture of my mostly white hair to prove Club Gray membership, but you can count on this evidence another post, another day.
Some of the older users of the sites say the experience feels more comfortable to them than when they tried MySpace, Facebook or Friendster.“I’ve discussed my divorce, my medical issues, and when do I dare go dating again,” said Martha Starks, 52, a retired optician in Tucson, who spends an hour or two each evening on a site called Eons. “I sure wouldn’t discuss that stuff with a 20-year-old.”
I’ve discussed before a generation gap being one of several reasons sites like MySpace and Facebook haven’t appealed to me personally. A bigger issue to me is what I mentioned earlier this week: I’m reluctant to spend that much time at any third party site, because they tend to change or disappear.
No offense to those still in middle school, high school or college, but I prefer to network and hang out with people who are out of school (preferably 21+, but 18+ is cool too), if I’m going to “hang out”, that is, with anybody. People are generally more comfortable hanging with people around their own age or older. It’s more likely the younger crowd is more interested in spending time with us graying folks (yes/no???) than vice versa, if both young and old being polled are being honest. Go ahead and correct this line of thinking in the comments below. What age group are you most comfortable with online? I don’t speak for the masses, I speak for myself and don’t have any problem admitting which demographic with which I’m most comfortable socializing.
Where do you feel most comfortable hanging out, if anywhere, online?
The thing is I don’t really “hang out” anywhere online. I’m not an excessive chat/IM person, with the lone exception being the Script School IRC channel and has been running some 5+ years. I’m more certain this IRC chat will be there longer than most of these here today, maybe here tomorrow social networks will be. In the IRC we don’t have to share every discussion we have with the world (Twitter/Pownce/Jaiku) nor display pages about us with all kinds of flashing lights, bells and whistles. We don’t need to obsessively ‘friend’ each other, because if you show up and hang out there for any extended period of time you become a ‘friend.’ It’s not a clique, as anybody that isn’t overly disruptive and spammy is welcome to join. And even there, I’m most active Monday - Friday during work hours, not 24/7. I’ve invited readers to this IRC channel before and I’ll invite all of you reading this again, just to reiterate how open this community is to new folks, here’s the details: irc.scriptschool.com #scriptschool
This chat is intended and welcome to those 18+ who are willing to stick around for awhile. At times this IRC channel — particularly during the live radio show on Fridays — the chat is inappropriate for those under 18 (that show is targeted to adult webmasters). We usually talk about different things happening on the web, some programming-related educational chatter and share links with an IRC bot that keeps track of links that are mostly worksafe. There is a java chat client for those who don’t run an IRC client, but I suspect most people who would be interested in an old school IRC channel run their own IRC client.
Truth is I get all the social networking and chat I want from IRC.
This doesn’t mean I don’t continue to try and get involved with sites like Facebook and MySpace to see if there is something that can improve my life and our businesses, but this interaction is primarily done at an outstretched arm level. I’m not sure how long these sites will be here and would rather allocate that time to creating something or helping somebody in a place that is more stable and long term.
Isn’t that a general personality trait of getting older? You don’t want to waste time as much as when you were younger because — reality check — you have a lot less of it. We all only have so much time.
With that said the sites which target baby boomers and seniors cited in the article still don’t appeal that much to me on concept (I’ll still check them out before passing any serious judgement): Eons, Rezoom, Multiply, Maya’s Mom, Boomj, and Boomertown. I might feel more comfortable hanging at sites with people closer to my age, but the here today, gone tomorrow aspect still remains.
Stowe Boyd, a fellow gray hair, doesn’t sound impressed:
Connection transcends demographics. We have to hope it does, or else the bullshit line that the old media idiots used to throw out as a condemnation of the blogosphere — just an echo chamber where people can find people with exactly the same parochial viewpoints to agree with — may become the basis of sound business models. I don’t buy it.
As for older people being more loyal? What do you think? If I was 21, I’d be a little annoyed reading an article like this which makes it sound like every younger person is flighty and disloyal. Maybe a higher percentage of this age group are, but it’s flawed painting any group with a broad brush.
From a business standpoint, who usually has more money?
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I agree that the Club Gray(Grey) members tend to hang at just about any site longer than the younger generation. I myself have bridged the 30ish mark. It seems to me that people younger than myself have so many options, I don’t much blame them for bopping around to the various places. In all of them - there doesn’t seem to be anything that keeps them there. Nothing to “grab” them.
I tend to hang with people +- a few years of my age in rl. Time is really so short, I can’t really tell ages anyhow (aside from maturity in conversation). Most true maturity shows through their textual conversation anyhow.
- yea this is pretty pointless I agree!
I did go and signup for a facebook account. Mainly so I could get a pulse on what the kids are up to these days. I know my daughter has an account. In order for me to relate to her better I thought I’d jump in. This way we can have similar things to talk about. At least I’m familiar with some of the workings of the social networking.
Thing is at almost 15 - she things the social networking thing is a bit pointless too. Anything that can be said in Facebook - could be emailed quicker, or SMS (text messaged for all you old/ non tech folk ;P) even faster. So why bother?
Comment by Lestat — September 12, 2007 @ 9:16 am PST
I’m on a lot of these networking sites, but I don’t “hang out” at any of them - they’re just a chance to quickly update a large group of my existing friends on how I’m doing.
The only virtual hanging out I’ve ever done has always been in the arena of gaming - primarily in City of Heroes. There it didn’t really matter how old people were, or what level of education they had - all that mattered was that they were a superhero in their spare time.
Even though I didn’t exclusively play “in-character,” when I left the game none of my game friends knew my actual gender.
Comment by peter — September 12, 2007 @ 10:02 am PST
The parent watching out, getting involved angle is an excellent point, Lestat, thanks for adding that.
I’m with you Peter, but let me play devil’s advocate a bit on this: “they’re just a chance to quickly update a large group of my existing friends on how I’m doing.” — why can’t you do that at your blog? Is it because more of your friends are on MySpace/Facebook,etc and it’s more convenient for them to follow you at the social network? I don’t see why your blog can’t be the update place? Perhaps have the main blog where you blog about your regular category and a sidebar/Twitter-type blog that provides these updates in case you don’t want to mix/match with your regular commentary.
It seems like a lot of extra work updating multiple places when in reality you can update your blog and provide friends with an arguably more dependable service without advertising making some company $$$$. You can be ad-free if you like or at least your friends know, hey, if I buy something from an ad on Peter’s blog, he’ll get a spiff.
Social network sites aren’t useless, they provide the benefit of connecting with people with similar interests who aren’t already following you, but I think a better long term strategy, if you will, would be to encourage people to go to one place (not multiple) to see what you’re up to. And that place, as you left that comment earlier this week, is probably on your own soil.
As for the ‘hanging out’ thing, you don’t leave yourself logged into an IM or some type of chat 24/7? Skype? A messageboard? Nothing? My definition of “hanging out” would basically cover being online and connected to something, not only a place where you are actively involved in it. There are long periods of time I’m logged into IRC that I’m not really “there.”
Comment by TDavid — September 12, 2007 @ 10:31 am PST
And BTW, I keep wanting to try out City of Heroes/Villains. I’ve heard mixed reviews on it and am curious how it compares to other MMORPG. Something I’ll eventually get around to checking out and writing about on our group blog. It’s too bad you can’t be the licensed superheroes on that one like Superman, Batman, Iron Man, etc.
Comment by TDavid — September 12, 2007 @ 10:33 am PST
I also engage in the “parent” angle of social networking by keeping in touch with Elise’s little brother. It seems way less intrusive than a parent doing the same (not that I’m doing it on their behalf), and, honestly, I wish I had some hip yuppy to take my electronic pulse when I was a teenager
TDavid, if I could get all those people to read my blog I would definitely abandon the sites, but that will never be the reality. More often than not I am pushing blog content out to them in an attempt to get more people hooked in to my RSS feed.
Also, keep in mind I am a musician, and the networking sites are a good way to find potential listeners and push both blogs and music out to them in a common channel. By the same token, I definitely don’t hang out on any sort of IM/Skype, because it’s just one more background app to interrupt me while I’m playing/recording music.
I played CoH for the first 1.5 years, during which they never officially released any game stats for the powers (e.g. damage/level, recharge time). Being a math-headed sort of gamer, I spent a *lot* of my spare time calculating how powers worked so that I could better understand my choices across the ten heroes I actively played, and every time I had it figured out they would make a tweak to the system. Eventually I realized that I was spending more time trying to figure out my hero powers than I was playing music, so I quit during the launch of CoV (two years ago).
(Also, going back a few post topics, it was one more example of creating content for a third-party - my own original heroes, complete with backstory and customized costume, but they didn’t *really* belong to me in the event I wanted to write a comic book or novel about them - because they existed in a shared universe.)
I still miss it HUGELY. Really it’s the perfect game for a casual gamer - there’s so much there to explore, and the stories are so well-written, all without the drag of equipment and spells and all of that nonsense. It’s just starts to sour when you get uncasual enough to need hard data on game mechanics.
Comment by peter — September 12, 2007 @ 11:29 am PST
I think MySpace is solid for musicians, another good strength. I’m actually subscribed to a few groups on MySpace like Quiet Riot.
“TDavid, if I could get all those people to read my blog I would definitely abandon the sites, but that will never be the reality.”
Never? Never say never, mon
Comment by TDavid — September 12, 2007 @ 11:36 am PST