The Savvy Boomer

Boomer Social Networking website traffic down

The news doesn't seem to be too good for Eons and Boomj and even TBD which has grown nicely over the last year has suffered a drop in 2009.  I've read a few articles lately that there is a lot of activity now on Facebook by the 40+ crowd.  Most people I know who use social networking sites are on Facebook while only a very few are on any of the 3 sites listed below.

One casualty I wasn't even aware of until recently is boomertowne (initial post about the site is here) which closed a few months ago and after Googling it, a lot of posts came up about some kind of coupon scam.

Click on the graph for more detailed information.

Another Boomer website weighs in

Thankfully, I haven't seen too many new boomer portal sites lately (not blogs, but sites that try to establish a boomer online community, conceivably to make money.)  All I can say to Boomer Yearbook is good luck, you're going to need that and a whole lot more.  In case you don't understand my cynicism, you might want to check out a few of these sites that regard themselves as boomer social networking sites:

• Eons
• Boomj
• Boomertowne
• Boomerator
• Boomer411
• Wanobe
  
• Sagazone
• Maple and Leek
• My Boomer Place
• eGenerations
• Growing Bolder
• Boomspeak
• it's Boomer Time
• My Boomer Place
• TBD
• Boomer Living

Sorry-no links but if you Google them, you'll find them, but why would you want to?  Actually, I do like TBD and Boomspeak but seldom visit.

Some of these are doing O.K., some have changed from boomer oriented sites to other genres, some are gone but not one of them is racking up large visitor and/or member counts.  I posted about why I thought boomer sites were doomed here.

A new Boomer site for women

Vibrant Nation's call to action on their new website:

Welcome to Vibrant Nation, where women 50+ exchange information and join in smart conversation.

Connect with others who share your desire to make the most out of life every day.

Men not allowed I guess.

Just what we need-another new boomer site

About a year ago it seemed that I was writing about new boomer sites at least once or twice a week.  You can see most of the posts by clicking on the "Boomer Portal Websites" and "Social Networking" in the categories section in the left column.  I even posted a rant on all these websites. In the last few months there have been very few new ones and most of the ones that are still operating are not generating the numbers of hits and therefore revenue that I'm sure they anticipated.  Yesterday, I posted about the latest layoff at Eons, the first big money attempt at becoming a boomer "Facebook".

It just doesn't seem to be working but TechCrunch reports another one has surfaced called Boomerater.  After a cursory browse through, I see absolutely nothing different from any of the other entries out there. 
They claim to have done their homework in their press release.

"Boomerater co-founder, Rami Weiss, 28, conceived of the site after watching his in-laws  struggle to get recommendations on suitable assisted-living options for their aging parents. “The web offers a huge number of sites for my generation to exchange advice and ideas, but it is extremely lacking in sites where Boomers can do the same,” said Weiss."

 

 “Boomerater is not a social network where the focus is on making friends – rather it’s an online community to learn from others who
have already dealt with similar situations.”

Sorry, but I disagree.  Many boomer sites offer these capabilities as well as being social networking sites.  There are many excellent blogs, many written by boomers, on dozens of subjects relating to boomers.    Also, there are chat rooms filled with boomers exchanging information. Perhaps instead of re-inventing the wheel, you could have researched some of these sites yourself and subscribed your in-laws to them in an RSS reader.  That's what I did when I wanted to contact other people looking for ideas on places to retire and now have over 40 RSS feeds and 2 sites dedicated to that topic alone.  Facebook has a lot of boomer groups on it as well.

In spite of my comments, I wish Boomerater well but I believe they are jumping into a pool that is very full (and some have already drowned) but drawing fewer viewers every month.  Go and have a look and tell me what you think.

How are those boomer portals doing?

It's been a while since we looked at these results from these 4 main boomer oriented websites.  None of them seem to be making much progress and while Boomj still leads the pack over once highly touted  Eons, it doesn't look as though any of them are going the right direction recently.

If you want to see all the posts that have been made on this subject over the past few months click here.

 

Boomj surpasses Eons in traffic

Actually, surpasses is an understatement.  According to Compete's statistics for the month of May, they had more than double Eon's traffic.  I don't know whether to be impressed with this or whether it should be expected in light of all of Eon's problems in the past few months.  I personally believe there are far more boomer visits to Facebook than all the boomer sites combined, but there is no way to break that stat out.  Regardless, kudos to Boomj and continued condolences to Eons.

Click on the graphs for complete stats.

In the battle of the also-rans, tbd and boomertowne plug along with gradually increasing numbers, but are less than 10% of boomj's monthly visits.

Boomer social networking sites languishing in traffic

Another month and none of them are showing much but close to flat line growth and Boomj even dropped 44% in traffic in April.  That puts Eons back as the largest traffic site in this niche but there was even more bad news there as their recently hired CTO has left.  Combine this with a 70% drop in traffic in the last year and it looks as though not much is going right for Eons.  Click on the graphic below to get all the numbers.

Boomj passes Eons in traffic in March 2008

Can it get any worse for Eons when competing site Boomj passes them in traffic?  I looked at the Boomj site and it featured a few people under 40 on their home page so like Eons, they have also obviously gone outside the boomer demographic.  It will be interesting to watch Boomj to see if they can keep up this growth.  I'm betting they can't.  And how much longer can Eons hold on cracking their huge financial nut every month?   Stay tuned folks.  Click on the graph below to get all the numbers.