The sugalicious way of life

In the summertime of 2006 my inbox was flooded with pitches from new Web companies hoping to convey some of the magic to the biggest and most neglected demographic on the Web: babe boomers. Makes perfect sense. Boomers stand for a immense market, and more than than 65 percentage of Americans between the ages of 50 and 70 usage the Internet . Many would experience out of topographic point on MySpace or , though they'd still like to link online. Advertisers who utilize the online medium would certainly like to attain them.

A twelvemonth later, many boomer-focused land sites are discovering it's a batch harder than they thought to construct a MySpace for adults. There are plenty of contenders, including and . However, the couple that most involvements me is last year's glitziest entrant, , and a scrappy newcomer, , standing for both "the baby boomer demographic" and "to be determined," a mention to the options unfastened to people in the postkids and retirement phase of life.

Eons and TeeBeeDee are a survey in the contrasts between Webs 1.0 and 2.0 and how each coevals of companies positions -- and seeks to suppress -- its several corner of the world.

A Portal for All Things Boomer

Reminiscent of an earlier Web era, Eons have pedigree, hard cash and eyeballs: Laminitis Jeff Deems Taylor previously founded Monster Worldwide; Eons have raised US$32 million from Sequoia Capital and General Catalyst Partners; and it acquires about 600,000 alone visitants a month, according to comScore.

Headquartered in Boston, Eons launched with fanfare, issuing fourth estate releases about its cash, early advertisers, and how Deems Taylor -- a few old age shy of 50 -- left a cushy occupation to begin this new venture. Reporters ate it up, and since free fourth estate only acquires you so far, Eons began disbursement 100s of one thousands of dollars a calendar month on selling .

Taylor also did extensive marketplace research and establish that virtually none of his focusing grouping participants wanted anything to make with societal networking. So Eons began as more than of a portal for all things boomer, with a staff authorship articles about life-changing topics baby boomers face. Deems Taylor soon discovered his focusing was wrong. An article on how to discontinue smoke would acquire a negligible 30 page views, while a posting from a user who hadn't smoked in 51 hours but said he was tempted to have got a coffin nail would acquire 300 comments. "It was clear people wanted to speak to each other, not acquire talked to," Deems Taylor says.

Indeed, much of the early Eons attack was out of step. Credentials, munificent spending, even big audiences -- all of it was overriding in the 1990s, when enterprisers dreamed more than than of immense trade names than utile sites, and getting to marketplace first was more of import than getting to marketplace right. Spending billions of dollars -- including on television commercial messages -- to purchase traffic, as Eons did, is now bete noire to many who lived through the surpluses of 1999 and 2000 and paid dearly when it all crashed. Better to put in applied scientists who can construct a merchandise so indispensable it distributes on its own. Authenticity Over Market Research

Compare all of this to TeeBeeDee, begun by Parenting magazine and CNET Networks veteran soldier Robin Wolaner. The company have set out a expansive sum of two fourth estate releases and spent a few thousand dollars on marketing. It have raised a modest $7.5 million from Shasta Ventures, Monitor Ventures and respective angel investors including Bokkos Conway. Wolaner have hired just 19 people. TBD did some modest marketplace research but ignored most of it. Wolaner states she learned to misgiving research after working in Penthouse magazine's publicity department, where she used marketplace research to "prove" to advertizers that people bought the magazine for the articles, not the pictures.

Instead, her squad mostly built what they would wish to see online and figured they'd iterate from there. That's much the manner some of the most successful Web 2.0 startups, including , and Facebook, were born. TBD is a batch like those companies in other key ways: It's housed in a dingy, anonymous edifice in San Francisco's South of Market district. Desks are scattered around a broad unfastened space, there's a bombilation of activity, and everyone is dressed casually, many in TeeBeeDee T-shirts. The lone difference: Almost everyone workings there is over 40.

Which underlines another cardinal Web 2.0 hallmark: authenticity. Every great societal networking land site was built by person the community can swear and associate to. Early on, college children and recent alumni could place with Facebook laminitis Mark Zuckerberg. What early MySpace flower people didn't have got a small chemical attraction for the ubiquitous, automatic first "friend," MySpace cofounder Uncle Tom Anderson, even if he was lying about his age? Building a land land site by hearing to 100s of one thousands of vocal members is difficult work, but the more than a site is built for you and your peers, the easier it is to understand what they have got to say. What to Make Next

Since Taylor, 47, can't even fall in his ain site, which debars anyone under 50, Eons is breaking the cardinal regulation of the Web 2.0 enchiridion from the get-go. Wolaner's site, on the other hand, have no such as restrictions, because it's focused less on that polar birthday and more than than on the phase of life when you begin to see more wrinkles, your calling may be less important, your children are out of the house, and you're figuring out what come ups next. It's her phase of life. Wolaner, 53, cognizes well the feeling of getting that first Association for the Advancement of Retired Persons mailing at 50. It's not "Oh, great, I acquire a discount!" she says. Instead, it's "Ew, am I really old adequate for this?"

To its credit, Eons have adapted well to at least one Web 2.0 manner of doing business: iteration. The land site have learned from early errors and reacted swiftly, recasting itself as a societal web . Eons have slashed selling and hopes to take off through word-of-mouth instead. The plucky Deems Taylor is coming around to the benefits of a little but loyal community, over a mass downpour of clickers who don't lodge around. "Everything about me is saying we necessitate to acquire this concern to grow, but I am learning to make things differently this time," he says. Capital Can't Buy Community

As a result, the differentiations between the land sites now are diminished. Both acknowledge that baby boomers desire a land site that volition aid them ran into new people and form around common interests. Both understand they have got to be simple and intuitive so they entice more than than just early adopters, and, Eon's early trips aside, both recognize listening to users will acquire them there.

So who will win? Part of that reply depends on what each company counts as success. Expanding to 600,000 users in a twelvemonth clearly wasn't adequate to back up Eons' original concern model, prompting layoffs of 35 percentage of its staff. But TBD, with its thin staff and expenses, would be thrilled to hit those Numbers sometime in the adjacent year. Because, at its core, TBD acquires something Eons still may not: To construct a immense Web 2.0 company, it's not about getting large fast, it's about getting it right first and then growing. A community necessitates to love your site, and no amount of venture working capital or advertisement can purchase that.

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