Read/WriteWeb has a post about massive layoffs at Eons, a social networking site targeted to baby boomer generation. Bernard Lunn at Read/WriteWeb concludes that a site should connect to its visitors around contents rather than age. On the surface it seems to be a good suggestion.
If you are running a blog around personal development, your reader-base is people who are interested in self-guided improvement of their economical, social, intellectual, and emotional lives. You really don’t care their age group. You provide your insights for a college sophomore who wishes to increase his dating success as well as for a 40-something mid-level corporate manager who wants to reduce his job stress.
However, for a social networking site like Eons, it is different. The site does not generate contents. It expects its users to generate contents. If it is targeting a particular age group, it expects people from that age group will join the site and generate appropriate contents suited for its members.
Among other things, sites like Eons fail because they limit their potential memberships to a fraction of the population. Unless the site provides tools that are particularly suited for an age group, there is no reason to limit your potential visitors. I don’t no what age-specific tools Eons provides to its members. I will guess none.
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