Matt Richtel wrote yesterday for the New York Times about the growth of websites aimed at older audiences.
Older people are sticky. That is the latest view from Silicon Valley. Technology investors and entrepreneurs, long obsessed with connecting to teenagers and 20-somethings, are starting a host of new social networking sites aimed at baby boomers and graying computer users.
The sites have names like Eons, Rezoom, Multiply, Maya’s Mom, Boomj, and Boomertown. They look like Facebook — with wrinkles.
And they are seeking to capitalize on what investors say may be a profitable characteristic of older Internet users: they are less likely than youngsters to flit from one trendy site to the next.
And the money is flowing…
Last week, VantagePoint Ventures, an early investor in MySpace, announced that it had led a $16.5 million round of financing for Multiply, a social networking site aimed at people who are settled.
In August, Shasta Ventures led a $4.8 million financing round for TeeBeeDee, a site coming out of its test stage this month. The name is short for “To Be Determined” (as in: just because you’re not trolling for a mate on MySpace doesn’t mean your life is over.)
Also in August, Johnson & Johnson spent $10 million to $20 million to acquire Maya’s Mom, a social networking site for parents, according to a person briefed on the deal. The site has been in existence about a year.
Thanks Damien for the heads up.
I tried to join this new service, but haven’t been able to yet.
I think I visited Smalltown.com a year ago and thought it looked interesting. Well, it seems they’ve been busy! They now host sites in five California communities…
Smalltown is the website where you can discover local treasures from the best source: your neighbors. Find a great babysitter, carpenter or stylist. Read reviews of the high school play. Watch a video clip about a new restaurant.
Smalltown recieved $3M of Series A investment about a year ago. But what caught my attention was co-founder Hal Rucker’s recent blog posting…
Which makes more sense for local: generate deep and uniquely useful content in a small geography, then replicate that process for hundreds of towns, or launch the whole US with shallow content all at once? (Choose one, because you can’t launch with deep local content everywhere at the same time.) InsiderPages went wide and shallow and it didn’t work out. Backfence tried to go deep in several regions at the same time and it, too, couldn’t get enough traction. Smalltown is going very deep in a very small geography, with plans to replicate that success quickly when we have all the technology and marketing knobs dialed in.
This gets at my previous postings about authentic local sites vs. global giants masquerading as local sites. As the number of web offerings explode, quality of information and genuine local knowledge will become more and more valuable. Sites that tap into that will become gems among the countless “wide and shallow” offerings.
I can foresee each city in the country having its own authentically local site (or sites) in the next few years that clearly dominate their town’s online space. Just like when every city had 1, 2, 3 or more daily newspapers. Just like in the past when you wanted news, sports, weather, debate, advertising, coupons, classifieds, etc… most people reached for the Gazette or Sentinel or whatever dominated the local newspaper scene.
Some sites will be homegrown entrepreneurial efforts (e.g., iBrattleboro), others may be a morphed newspaper that gets online done right, some areas will be covered by a “chain” like Smalltown or Backfence (RIP), and other poor towns will only have soulless cookie cutter sites supplied top-down by a giant dot.com.
So Smalltown appears to be doing the hard work of developing truly local sites based on their proprietary platform and process. I’m impressed with the concept. I’m not familiar with their initial communities, so it’s hard to assess the results to date, and I haven’t focused on the technology they’ve developed. More power to ’em. 🙂
I admit that I’ve never been much of an online social networker. I’ve watched various sites come on the scene, some skyrocket, and some fall back down to earth. The latest darling, of course, is Facebook. I’ve tried a few times to immerse myself in it supposedly life-giving waters, but I end up hopping out after a quick lap… feels like a waste of time for me. I know others whom I respect find it valuable, so it remains one of life’s mysteries… gotta love the unknown.
Except I’m beginning to hear what may grow into a chorus of the disenchanted. Here are a couple not who also are not drawn to Facebook… apophenia (see comments too) and DevLife (writes about Front Porch Forum too).
I’ll be leading a session called Jumpstart your Neighborhood as part of the annual HealthSource Community Education Series organized by Fletcher Allen Health Care and the University of Vermont.
Wednesday, September 19, 7 – 8 p.m.
Jumpstart Your Neighborhood
Michael Wood-Lewis
Co-Founder Front Porch Forum
Common sense and a growing body of research tell us that well-connected neighborhoods are friendlier places to live, with less crime, healthier residents, higher property values, and better service from local government and utilities. Front Porch Forum, a new online service, is helping people in Chittenden County build community at the neighborhood level. Learn the secrets of successful neighborhoods and jumpstart your neighborhood forum into gear. Plenty of time for questions.
This series is free and intended for the general public. Pre-registration is required… call 802-847-2278 (location within Chittenden County, Vermont, and directions provided when you call).
Also, I’ll be leading a workshop (Virtual Neighborhood: Building Local Community Online) at Orton Family Foundation’s CommunityMatters07 conference on Burlington’s waterfront Oct. 23. I just heard that people are registering now, so it looks like it should be a good turnout for this national event.
I’m looking forward to both sessions and encourage those with valuable experience, basic and advanced questions, and good ideas to come and share.
Ghost of Midnight is an online journal about fostering community within neighborhoods, with a special focus on Front Porch Forum (FPF). My wife, Valerie, and I founded FPF in 2006... read more
