Social Media and the Online Lives of Baby Boomers: A Conversation with Jeff Taylor, Eons.com

Much to the dismay of theirchildren, baby boomers are online and doing more than checking out pictures offamily members and exchanging recipes. Boomers are moving to online communitiesto help them with the daily ‘jobs’ of midlife and older age. Certainly theseonline jobs include the common activities of shopping and email. However, anincreasing number of midlife-plus users are using social media as an importantplatform to research, choose, validate and adopt products and services. Livingonline for older users (in sharp contrast to most younger digerati) includesusing the web and making new ‘friends’ to help with critical choices and behaviors thatsupport health, caregiving, financial services, retirement planning, employmenthunting and networking and yes, even fun and leisure.

To learn more I interviewedJeff Taylor during an AgeLab forum on aging and business innovation sponsored by The Hartford Financial Services Group. Jeff is founder of Eons.com a premier online baby boomer community. A boomer himself, Jeff has made a career on the lifecycle of baby boomers. He foundedMonster.com the mega-successful and international online employment site thatbegan by supporting a generation develop their career trek. Today he is thevisionary behind Eons.com creating a new community for older boomers as theytrek their next stage of life. Jeff shares his experience at Eons.com providinga glimpse into how baby boomers are using social media, how they are different thantheir kids, how boomer men and women engage differently, and how community isno longer just where you live but where you connect.