List of online communities, networks, etc for all ages

This is a great list of site that people at different life stages and ages are using online. Thanks to Web Strategy by Jeremiah for this great resource.

List of Communities, Virtual Worlds, and Social Networks for Youth, Boomers, Retired, and Beyond 

Posted: 11 Jun 2008 02:28 PM CDT

I’m doing research around how different ages using social networks, communities, and virtual worlds by age, and will compile this list as it grows. I’m looking for established community sites that are mature enough to work with brands. There is already so much coverage on mainstream social networks like Bebo, MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn that we forget about the other smaller niche networks.

First, understand technographics (how ages use social media) by accessing Forrester’s profile tool <http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell/profile_tool.html> , available for free. If you know the demographics for any of these, please leave a comment.

Youth
I’m primarily seeking communties that are under 18, beyond just MySpace.
Club Penguin, Disney <http://www.clubpenguin.com/>
8-12, Virtual World Stardolls <http://www.stardoll.com/en/>
Young Girls 10-17, Social Network, virtual dolls Barbie Girls <http://barbiegirls.com/homeMtl.html>
6-16, Virtual World WeeWorld <http://www.weeworld.com/>
Youth, Avatar based Social network Zookazoo <http://www.zookazoo.com/>
6-10 year olds, Virtual World Club Penguin, Disney <http://www.clubpenguin.com>>
8-12, Social network, virtual dolls Gaia <http://www.gaiaonline.com/>
Teens, Virtual World Habbo Hotel <http://www.habbo.com/>
European Youth, Virtual World Cyworld <http://www.cyworld.com>
South Korean youth, (and now global), virtual/social network Neopets <http://www.neopets.com/>
Youth, Virtual Pets Pixie Hollow, Disney <http://disney.go.com/fairies/pixiehollow/comingSoon.html>
Young Girls, Virtual Pet Teen Second Life <http://teen.secondlife.com/>
Teen, Virtual World Webkinz <http://www.webkinz.com/>
Youth, Virtual World Piczo <http://www.piczo.com/>
Teens, Social Network Shining Stars, by Russ <http://www.shiningstars.com/>
Youth, ‘name a star’
Puzzle Pirates <http://www.puzzlepirates.com/>
Youth, Gaming, Virtual World

50+
Now of course, boomers and retired are also going to be on lifestyle social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn, but I’m seeking examples that are focused in on reaching these folks.

Eons <http://www.eons.com/>
50+, Social Network BOOMj <http://www.boomj.com/>
50+, Social Network Tee Bee Dee <http://www.tbd.com/>
Boomers, Social Network There’s a larger list of Boomer sites <http://emersondirect.wordpress.com/2007/11/13/the-top-30-social-network-sites-for-baby-boomers/> , many I’ve not heard from.

Departed
Someone suggests this in the comments in Friendfeed, makes sense.
Legacy <http://www.legacy.com/NS/>
Respectance <http://respectance.com/>
Tributes.com
SweetMemoriesSite <http://www.SweetMemoriesSite.com>
ChristianMemorials <http://www.christianmemorials.com/>
PreciousMemoriesAndMore <http://www.preciousmemoriesandmore.com/> For what it’s worth, I hope this blog lives on past my time here.

Related Resources
Danah Boyd has a great PDF on Youth and Social Networks (PDF) <http://www.danah.org/papers/WhyYouthHeart.pdf>
Many reports (260) on Forrester site tagged youth <http://www.forrester.com/rb/search/results.jsp?N=0&Ntk=MainSearch&Ntx=mode+MatchAllPartial&Ntt=youth>

http://www.web-strategist.com/blog

Retirees Surf and Respond

According to the Vertis Communications 2007 Customer Focus Tech Savvy study, twenty-one percent of total adults in 2007 have responded to direct mail advertising in the past month by visiting a sender's Web site. Findings also revealed that older men's responsiveness to direct mail advertising through the Internet has grown the most, with 28 percent of men ages 55-64 indicating this behavior and 15 percent of men 65 and older exhibiting the same pattern.

Jim Litwin, vice president of market insights for Vertis Communications, noted that "...targeting the older population may greatly increase the overall effectiveness of marketers' spending, particularly as men reach retirement and find more time to surf the Web."

The study further shows that women ages 35-44 have been the most likely to change their cell phone providers throughout the years, with 22 percent planning to switch providers in the next year, compared to 13 percent in 2005. And, women who earn more than $30,000 per year switch mobile phone providers more often, with 16 percent planning to change in 2007, compared to 6 percent in 2005. Older men ages 55-64 have remained the most satisfied with their cell phone companies over time, as only 13 percent of respondents indicated plans to switch service in the next year, no change from 2005.

The study, which surveyed 2,000 consumers via telephone, provided additional details:

When expressing interest in a product or company, 55 percent of total adults prefer some form of interactive follow-up communication from the company, which include e-mails personalized to their needs, generic e-mails or text messaging

Key observations, according to the Executive Summary:

• Twenty-three percent of young men ages 18-24 are the most open to follow-up communication via text messaging,versus 5 percent of women their same age and 6 percent of total adults
• Women 65 and older are the least interested in personalized or generic follow-up e-mails.
• Forty percent of men 65 and older prefer an interactive e-mail from a company they have expressed interest in, compared to 23 percent of their female counterparts
• While 91 percent of men ages 25-34 have access to the Internet according to Vertis' study, 56 percent of these men do not read e-mail advertising
• For women earning more than $75,000 a year, overall e-mail readership has increased during the past two years to 50 percent in 2007
• While only 1 percent of total adults read all e-mail advertising available to them, 20 percent occasionally read e-mails personalized to them
• Twenty-eight percent of young men ages 18-24 would consider receiving investment advice through the Internet, compared to 13 percent of women their same age
• Twenty percent of men earning $75,000 or more each year would consider using financial products, services or receiving investment advice online, compared to 13 percent of total adults
• Women earning between $30,000 and $50,000 per year are least likely to consider receiving financial or investment advice online, at 8 percent, down from 11 percent in 2003

DWP targets silver surfers with social networking site

by Staff Brand Republic 29-Oct-07, 10:30

LONDON - The Department for Work and Pensions has unveiled a social networking website to encourage direct communication with the government and debate among older people about the issues that matter to them.

The pilot scheme at generationxperience.wordpress.com has been developed in conjunction with the Hansard Society as part of DWP's Generation Xperience campaign, which earlier this month staged the first UK Older People's Day.

Representatives from DWP will regularly update the website, start new discussions and contribute to existing ones as well as moderating the site. The site will also link to other well-known social networking sites including MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr.

The initiative follows recent research for DWP's Generation Xperience campaign, which revealed the popularity of the internet among older people. More than half of all over-50s have access to the internet, rising to three quarters (76%) of 50- to 64-year-olds.

Nearly one in six of those in the 50-64 age bracket have conquered instant messaging, social networking sites and internet chatrooms (15%), while emailing is becoming the norm (37%). More than half (56%) of respondents say they have set themselves the goal of ‘learning computer skills’ as they approach later life.

Mike O'Brien, Pensions Minister, said: "There are 20m people over the age of 50 in the UK who have helped build a prosperous economy, a strong society and a better country. It is crucial their views must be taken into consideration.

"With this pilot scheme, we’re using a method of communication that is becoming increasingly commonplace for this age group. As many of the popular social networking sites are oriented towards young internet users, this is an effective way of talking to and listening to older people in the UK and has great potential to reduce isolation and promote digital inclusion."

The Generation Xperience UK Older People's Day initiative is supported by the DWP and the Department of Health in conjunction with a range of other government departments and agencies.

Other partners include the Financial Services Authority, Help the Aged, Age Concern, LinkAge Plus Pilots, Better Government for Older People, The International Longevity Centre, B&Q, CSV RSVP and the Beth Johnson Foundation.

Beckoning Boomers to the Web

Eons and TeeBeeDee both court the over-50 crowd, but their diverging paths illustrate the differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0
by Sarah Lacy

In the summer of 2006 my inbox was flooded with pitches from new Web companies hoping to bring some of the MySpace (NWS) magic to the largest and most neglected demographic on the Web: baby boomers. Makes perfect sense. Boomers represent a huge market, and more than 65% of Americans between the ages of 50 and 70 use the Internet. Many would feel out of place on MySpace or Facebook, though they'd still like to connect online. And advertisers who use the online medium would certainly like to reach them.

A year later, many boomer-focused sites are discovering it's a lot harder than they thought to build a MySpace for adults. There are plenty of contenders, including Gather and BoomJ. But the duo that most interests me is last year's glitziest entrant, Eons.com, and a scrappy newcomer, TeeBeeDee, standing for both "the boomer demographic" and "to be determined," a reference to the options open to people in the postkids and retirement stage of life.

Eons and TeeBeeDee are a study in the contrasts between Webs 1.0 and 2.0 and how each generation of companies views—and tries to conquer—its respective corner of the world.

A Portal for All Things Boomer
Reminiscent of an earlier Web era, Eons has pedigree, cash, and eyeballs: Founder Jeff Taylor previously founded Monster Worldwide (MNST); Eons has raised $32 million from Sequoia Capital and General Catalyst Partners; and it gets about 600,000 unique visitors a month, according to comScore (SCOR).
Headquartered in Boston, Eons launched with fanfare, issuing press releases about its cash, early advertisers, and how Taylor—a few years shy of 50—left a cushy job to start this new venture. Reporters ate it up (BusinessWeek.com, 10/16/07). And since free press only gets you so far, Eons began spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a month on marketing.

Taylor also did copious market research and found that virtually none of his focus group participants wanted anything to do with social networking. So Eons began as more of a portal for all things boomer, with a staff writing articles about life-changing topics boomers face. Taylor soon discovered his focus was wrong. An article on how to quit smoking would get a paltry 30 page views, while a posting from a user who hadn't smoked in 51 hours but said he was tempted to have a cigarette would get 300 comments. "It was clear people wanted to talk to each other, not get talked to," Taylor says.

Indeed, much of the early Eons approach was out of step. Credentials, lavish spending, even large audiences—all of it was paramount in the 1990s, when entrepreneurs dreamed more of huge brands than useful sites, and getting to market first was more important than getting to market right. Spending millions of dollars—including on TV commercials—to buy traffic, as Eons did, is now anathema to many who lived through the excesses of 1999 and 2000 and paid dearly when it all crashed. Better to invest in engineers who can build a product so indispensable it spreads on its own.

Authenticity Over Market Research

Compare all of this to TeeBeeDee, begun by Parenting magazine and CNET Networks (CNET) veteran Robin Wolaner. The company has put out a grand total of two press releases and spent a few thousand dollars on marketing. It has raised a modest $7.5 million from Shasta Ventures, Monitor Ventures, and several angel investors including Ron Conway. Wolaner has hired just 19 people. TBD did some modest market research but ignored most of it. Wolaner says she learned to distrust research after working in Penthouse magazine's promotion department, where she used market research to "prove" to advertisers that people bought the magazine for the articles, not the pictures.

Instead, her team mostly built what they would like to see online and figured they'd iterate from there. That's much the way some of the most successful Web 2.0 startups, including Yelp, Digg, and Facebook, were born. TBD is a lot like those companies in other key ways: It's housed in a dingy, anonymous building in San Francisco's South of Market district. Desks are scattered around a wide open space, there's a buzz of activity, and everyone is dressed casually, many in TeeBeeDee T-shirts. The only difference: Almost everyone working there is over 40.

Which underscores another key Web 2.0 hallmark: authenticity. Every great social networking site was built by someone the community can trust and relate to. Early on, college kids and recent graduates could identify with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. And what early MySpace hipsters didn't have a little affinity for the ubiquitous, automatic first "friend," MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson, even if he was lying about his age? Building a site by listening to hundreds of thousands of vocal members is hard work, but the more a site is built for you and your peers, the easier it is to understand what they have to say.
What to Do Next
Since Taylor, 47, can't even join his own site, which bars anyone under 50, Eons is breaking the cardinal rule of the Web 2.0 handbook from the get-go. Wolaner's site, on the other hand, has no such restrictions, because it's focused less on that pivotal birthday and more on the stage of life when you start to see more wrinkles, your career may be less important, your kids are out of the house, and you're figuring out what comes next. It's her stage of life. Wolaner, 53, knows well the feeling of getting that first AARP mailing at 50. It's not "Oh, great, I get a discount!" she says. Instead, it's "Ew, am I really old enough for this?"
To its credit, Eons has adapted well to at least one Web 2.0 way of doing business: iteration. The site has learned from early mistakes and reacted swiftly, recasting itself as a social network. Eons has slashed marketing and hopes to take off through word-of-mouth instead. The feisty Taylor is coming around to the benefits of a small but loyal community, over a mass torrent of clickers who don't stick around. "Everything about me is saying we need to get this business to grow, but I am learning to do things differently this time," he says.
Capital Can't Buy Community
As a result, the distinctions between the sites now are diminished. Both recognize that boomers want a site that will help them meet new people and organize around common interests. Both understand they have to be simple and intuitive so they lure more than just early adopters. And, Eon's early missteps aside, both realize listening to users will get them there.
So who will win? Part of that answer depends on what each company counts as success. Expanding to 600,000 users in a year clearly wasn't enough to support Eons' original business model, prompting layoffs of 35% of its staff. But TBD, with its lean staff and expenses, would be thrilled to hit those numbers sometime in the next year. Because, at its core, TBD gets something Eons still may not: To build a huge Web 2.0 company, it's not about getting big fast, it's about getting it right first and then growing. A community needs to love your site, and no amount of venture capital or advertising can buy that.
Lacy has been a business reporter for 10 years, most recently covering technology for BusinessWeek. Her book on the new generation of Internet moguls and the rise of Web 2.0 will be published by Penguin Publishing in 2008.

Spain's blogging gran a hit with surfers

SANXENXO, Pontevedra (Reuters) - "Today it's my birthday and my grandson, who is very stingy, gave me a blog."

So reads the first entry by one of the world's oldest Webloggers, Maria Amelia Lopez, who, at the age of 95, has surprised herself by a sudden conversion from Web-illiterate to cybercelebrity.

"At first I thought a blog was just a type of paper notebook," said Lopez, a great grandmother.

"When I saw my grandson using the Internet, it caught my attention. I said to myself 'What's this? You can find out about anything. I want an Internet!'"

With 60,000 regular readers so far, Lopez's homely mix of memory and chat, available at http://amis95.blogspot.com/, attracts regular readers from around the world and has put her back in touch with the younger generation in a way she had never imagined.

"No one pays any attention to old women any more. Not many people love us. But I was surprised by the Internet, because young people who were 18 years of age, or 14 or 15, tell me about their lives and what they think and ask my advice," said Lopez.

Only one in 10 people over the age of 65 use the Internet in Spain, slightly below the European average. Although that proportion has nearly doubled over the last two years, it still suggests older citizens are missing the digital revolution even though they make up a growing portion of the population.

"Age is more important (to determining Internet use) than income, gender .... or level of education," said Domingo Laborda, an official Spain's Industry Ministry. Continued...