I’m in my, um, “late” 40s and I sure as hell don’t want to be associated with a bunch of doddering an drooling old fools.

Next time VCs - shoot me a little of that $32M - I’ll figure out how to get the AARPers together fo’ real.
Moo

Gather.com

Thanks for that commercial link Mike B

Wow… Talk about an “Oh… My… God…” moment. That thing was just mortifying.

One of the things I like about Multiply is that I’m completely in control of the content on my site. And I’m in control of who my contacts are who provide the rest of the content I see while I’m there. There’s nothing showing up on the site except what’s been recommended or written by my family and friends. No one else’s agenda, news reel, set of links, etc. is popping into my social experience without my specifically allowing that connection. I like that user provided content and the clear control I have over it.

I checked out auditoriumA.com (thanks for mentioning that, Tony) and the first thing that strikes me is that, though I can add suggestions, all of the content is provided for me. I get the impression this is how eons works as well. I tended to like what I saw at auditoriumA (I even found a few blogs I hadn’t heard of before that look great!) but I don’t think that’s what I’d want in a social site.

I’d venture to say that it’s not necessarily over 50’s who would like content provided, but a certainly personality type. And I’m curious to hear from people who like that content-provided style. What do you like about it (especially as compared to sites where you and your contacts provide the content that you interact with)?

With a strong pedigree, plausibility of an idea is nothing short of meaningless.

Having survived a restructured company–that was later sold to Jeff Taylors first dot.com, Monster.com–I can say that it was the best thing that happened to us. It forced us to be a real company, be accountable and be focused, and most of all be really entrepreneurial. From being a month away from closing the doors, we grew to a solid company with great profit margins. So, we have to wait and see, but this might help eons in the long run.

Unfortunately, by focusing on age they’ve made a critical misstep. No one who is over 50 wants to be considered “old” and so they buy the Honda Element (marketed to teens and twenty somethings) and will probably skip Eons (marketed to Boomers).

At auditoriumA.com - a new content discovery service - we’ve created a completely intuitive interface that empowers Boomers and other busy professionals to unearth some of the web’s most interesting and entertaining buried treasures - even if they have minimal computer skills.

We’ve found the sweet spot right between grown-up and hip. Boomers know it when they see it and feel right at home among the 20 and 30 year olds.

BTW- The inside story on the Monster.com, he didn’t come up with it…Jeff ran a small shop specializing in Job classifieds. One of his customers asked him to create an “Internet Ad” for them as they were recuiting engineers. So out of that customer came the “MonsterBoard” (as in BBS on the internet). Jeff should get credit for realizing how big it could be and recruiting other companies into the database. But as much as he says publically that he invented it, privately he’ll tell you the real story. Kudos to him.

and ppl are getting offended here o_O?

you just feel old! silly insecurities!

Well said.

Ageist title notwithstanding, TechCrunch has the full story on Eon’s layoffs we posted about earlier this week. Look at some of the comments from their readers: I think the challenge with this market is that people don’t want to admit…

If the tone of the site is anything like the tone of the commercial, no wonder it’s tanking!

So, Elder, are you saying that you’d *prefer* to be targeted as an “over 50″? Personally, I’d rather not be targeted as an over 35, even though I am. I simply don’t see my age as a prominent part of my identity (nor a prominent part of what I’m looking for in a social site). It’s certainly a piece, but a focal point? Not for me.