Social Networking and More Social Networking

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by: Dick Stroud 

Today the FT has had a veritable fest of articles about social networking with references to the 50-plus. Starting with an article about Eons, with a quote from the company’s head of strategy: “older people are starting to turn to social networking sites for a specific purpose – to find useful information or make a connection.”

This takes us seamlessly to the next item that reports that Healthline Networks, a provider of intelligent health information services is to work with Eons. As we know ‘health’ is a big, big issue with the 50-plus.

The article also contained a couple of interesting facts. Eons claims 250,000 unique visitors a month but according to ComScore, 5,000,000 people over the age of 55 visit MySpace each month (11% of MySpace’s total audience).

Finally the FT has an article about Mixi, Japan’s biggest social networking site.

Apparently, Mixi is preparing for a: “ flood of more mature users and a shake-up to its online demographics from next year as the country’s baby boomers begin to hit retirement age”.
The head honcho at Mixi is quoted as saying: "We are working on the definite assumption that our demographics are going to change within the next two or three years as the baby-boomers join the service."

For those Japanese speakers – here is the web

Now I am not convinced about this social networking euphoria, but more of that later.

Original Post: http://www.20plus30.com/blog/2006/12/social-networking-and-more-social.html