Daily Archives: October 25, 2007

Baby Boomers and Social Networks.

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So we have MySpace and Facebook and LinkedIn and a smattering of other social networking sites out there, but what’s out there for the wired boomer?  How about Eons? I’m not so sure about the name. But maybe that’s intentional? Eons sounds like a nightclub. You know the kind that’s only around for about 3 years and then is reinvented into a country saloon… Almost sounds somewhat presienct..  So before we spell the demise of Eons, Let me digress. Eons features sections on fun, love, money, body – and obituaries, among others. True to the demographic, you won’t be seeing obit notices on MySpace any time soon.

Founded by Monster.com founder Jeff Taylor, Eons.com caters to the 50-plus demographic, aiming to become their MySpace and Facebook, writes Reuters. “These are people who want to spend money to save time rather then spend their time trying to save money,” Taylor is quoted as saying. The site offers interactive games, news on entertainment and hobbies, a longevity calculator and an obituary database that sends alerts when someone you know dies. Note: If I’m starting to send obit notices to friends about friends who bit it in their 50’s, then it’s time to put away the bong and lace up the cross-trainers.

The site creates associations between members with similar goals, some of which, such as “take a trip to Hawaii,” will serve as leads for marketers, writes ClickZ. Site partners hoping for such leads include Verizon, Hyatt, Liberty Mutual, Harrah’s Entertainment, and Humana.

Eons.com also offers standard display ad units as well as high-level sponsorships and targeted contextual placements. Its “Cranky” search engine, which uses Ask.com technology, allows users to rate search results, some of which will be vetted by human editors.

Another Boomer site is Boomj. I’m not sure if that’s pronounced Boom-J or is it Boomja? nevertheless  this site seems to have a little bit more going on than Eons. Here is Boomj’s description:

The name BOOMj derives from the two primary audiences we serve: the Baby Boomers Generation and Generation Jones – both born during the big 20-year, post-World War II boom in births from the mid-1940’s to mid-1960’s.

  • Baby Boomers were born 1942 to 1953; we associate their youth with Howdy Doody, Davy Crocket hats, and later, Woodstock and Vietnam War demonstrations.
  • Generation Jones, born 1954 to 1965, is a newer concept and name that represents the actual children of the sixties (more wide-eyed than tie-dyed); Jonesers were weaned on The Brady Bunch and Easy Bake Ovens and later were the teens of 70’s heavy metal, disco, punk and soul.

At this point it still remains to be seen whether these will actually work in the same fashion as some of the larger more notable social networks. The question is do Boomers want to spend time sitting in front of the pc making friends or would they rather be out in the clubs throwin down? It really does boil down to how the Boomer nation has adapted and adopted to social networking.  Social networking is more an extension of Gen Y and even younger as yet to be named generations.  Boomers with exceptionsl power and influence however may choose to keep it simple to the extent that their cell phones and email are what they consider as being wired in todays culture, Boomers will make a determination very quickly whether Eons and Boomj is for them or not.

Britney Spears’ new compelling song titles

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Taking branding to the next level and the fact that her name was searched on a cumulative 14 million times last month. Britney has released her new album art. A quick note. a) albums don’t exist anymore and b) CD jewel case art is almost non-existent as well. So having said that, we can always steer towards a crotch shot if need be. So without further ado, here are the titles of her new songs. Beware the spelling and the emotional depth  of these tracks amazing. In parentheses are the authors comments.

1. Gimme More (Of what? )

2. Piece of Me ( which part, we’ve seen most of it already)

3. Radar ( Something she could use for her camera friendly friends)

4. Break The Ice ( Something needed when she sees her kids)

5. Heaven On Earth ( The current state of her affairs?)

6. Get Naked (Enough already)

7. Freakshow ( Any time she leaves the house)

8. Toy Soldier ( Her perception of the war)

9. Hot As Ice (Seemed like a good idea for a song title)

10.Ooh Ooh Baby ( Seemed like a really cool title for a song, dontcha think?)

11.Perfect Lover (KFed?)

12. Why Should I Be Sad (Let us count the ways)

Facebook is white hot!

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If you haven’t already heard, Facebook has a valuation of $15 billion. That’s fifteen billllion dollars, I’m quoting Doctor Evil there.  Why is it valued so high? Every day Facebook adds another 100,000 users. It has 35 million active users and underneath that it has over 6 million active user groups.

According to the WSJ, Facebook is going to make close to $30 million this year. More incredibly Facebook costs nothing to use. So this begs the question, how is it going to make 30 mill and why is it valued so high? The answers are traffic, data, and advertising. Similar to what Google has done with AdWords, Facebook has the built in luxury of 35 million users with deep data points to pitch. The  other reason why the valuation is so high is that what makes Facebook so attractive is that the data is essentially user data.

Google Adwords relies on keyword contextual data but Facebook can get down and dirty. If it wants to go after sophomore high school students in Trenton, New Jersey, it can. Or lets say, college graduates from UCLA from 2004,  that hail from Long Beach, it can do that too. It has the ability right now to target by age, gender and location. Eventually it will be able to automatically target  its users based on the personal information that users have supplied.

What we don’t know is what the finished product of Facebook will eventually be. Mark Zuckerberg has stated that it could be 30 years before we finally see what the last iteration of Facebook could be, and that it could be very different from what it is now. It’s amazing that when he started Facebook, he was 19. His initial intent was to create a site that showed you who was in certain classes at Harvard, so that you could make a more than educated decision of what classes you wanted to take and with whom. Amazing how something that started out as a mere tool or app for a college campus has turned into a social networking phenomenon. It reminds me of Napster.

I’m sure what a lot of people are thinking, or rather a lot of marketing people are thinking, is how they can get in the slipstream of Facebook. What this means is, how can a marketer create a business that is a direct result of the creation of Facebook? Google has spawned the creation of 1000’s of companies that are around because of Google. I’m sure we can expect the same thing with Facebook.

What do you think will happen with Facebook? Are you a part of Facebook? Do you use it regularly? What will the landscape of social networks look like in 2 years?