Techcrunch: Apparently old people aren't dying to use Eons

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 their old…even if you’re 50+ you want to act young…joining a site like this is admitting you’re old.

• Having had several conversations with Eons founder Jeff Taylor I can personally testify to the fact that arrogance “we know what we are doing” has made the survival of Eons questionable. A friend who has consulted with Eons agrees that ego has gotten in the way of wisdom. If I were a VC backing Eons, I would demand that Taylor they bring someone in who understands this market (obituaries, indeed!) Short of that, I predict Eons own obit will appear within the next year to 18 months. A pity. I originally thought AARP finally had a formidable competitor. A great opportunity blown by hubris.

• Why the so called startup needed 24 employees is beyond me. Even 3 is more than it needed. Just goes to show VC are still sticking to “Serial Entrepreneurs” when in fact startups require fresh ideas now days. OLD boys are losing it to the youngsters.

And this one I totally agree with:

"Quite frankly, I’m the market and I don’t see the use of any of these sites to me, because they isolate me from the mainstream. If I’m going to be on a social network, and I am on many, it will be Facebook. I always find it amusing that the developers of these sites think people my age are only interested in finances, golf and health. WRONG! I registered for Eons and never went back."

See the TechCrunch coverage here:

Comments

[Casey Dawes]

There actually has to be a community for people to get involved with. I registered for EONs, too, as well as several other sites that weren't necessarily slanted towards boomers. I find I have to think about going back to all of them except for Boomer Women Speak. I have relationships with those women, who talk about what women of our age talk about. And there's enough variation within the forum that there's generally something people can join into discussing. It's not artificially created and that's what a lot of these "social networking sites" are.

[Micki]

My own review of Eons when it was first introduced wasn't exactly favorable either. I had hoped that I would be wrong in thinking that it was simply a marketing ploy, I haven't seen any evidence that I was wrong.