Online video is as age neutral as it gets

This data from comScore is a bit out of date but I doubt if the profile has changed much in the past 15 months. If you want evidence to show the age neutrality of online video, this is it.

You can listen and view the presentation on the comScore site. Dick Stroud

Digital Inclusion at the sharp end

This is a great video showing how older people can get online, with a bit of help.

In this case the video shows a group of people in Hackney, East London, who are clearly enjoying themselves and getting the skills to use the Internet. Well done Age Concern Hackney.

This clip was taken from an ITV programme about digital exclusion in the UK - all 10,000,000 people who do not use the Internet. Dick Stroud

Are you a digital adult or digital novice – Wells Fargo has the answer

Wells Fargo has been doing some research about digital literacy. Apparently we all fall into one of three groups.

Digital Adults - people who use advanced online tools for daily tasks, interaction and entertainment

Digital Novices - people with a general understanding of online tools who use them to manage basic tasks, but don’t interact with others online or manage complex tasks on the web

Digital Teens - who fall in between novices and adults?

In the UK we have 10,000,000 people who are not connected to the Internet. I guess they are Digital Babies?

The “Adult Group,” digitally speaking, is not twenty-somethings but thirty-somethings. While twenty-somethings led in the use of advanced online tools for entertainment, with such activities as watching television online and social networking, thirty-somethings are more likely to use advanced online photo and video technologies, career networking services, and financial management services.

A similar pattern emerges with banking and managing finances online.

The survey apparently shows that Youth is loosely correlated with digital adulthood and that digital sophistication generally declined with age.

This is all interesting stuff but it totally ignores the main thing that determines the type of Internet use – education. This applies to all ages.

I suspect this PR research is more to do with getting people to the Wells Fargo site, to find out their digital age, than to extending our understanding about the segmentation of Web use. Dick Stroud

Time to read the tea leaves

It’s that time of year where you cannot open a newspaper without reading predictions for 2010 and rationalisations of 2009. I thought that enough had been written about 2009 but it might be interesting to speculate about the coming 12 months – from the perspective of the things that will be important when marketing to older people.

So what issues will keep the 50-plus marketer awake at night in eager anticipation or dread? My top five – not in any particular order are:

Technology 1. The combination of smart new mobile hardware and operating systems, 3G, GPS, motion detection, zillions of data feeds, speech and character recognition all tied up in a bow using apps development toolkits makes for the most exciting thing since we typed our first http://www. 2010 will be the start of era of 50-plus apps that will create fantastic new marketing opportunities.

Technology 2. Web video is still on a rapid upward trajectory. In 2009 it went from being something of a novelty to a media format that all web sites had to consider using. 2010 will see the use of Web video as an effective format to communicate with older consumers, really come of age (excuse the pun).

Technology 3. Social networking is here to stay but is becoming something of a bore. Back at the beginning of recorded time e-mail was exciting and something worth talking about – not any more, other than to moan about the time it consumes. I reckon that generic social networking sites are going the same way. The higher income 50-plus pretty much mirror the usage patterns of the Web. Sure they will retain their Linkedin and Facebook accounts but so what?

Advertising. For years I have been saying that: “this is the year when advertising becomes more age-neutral.” Why break the habit of a lifetime and say it again. Honestly, I do detect that the message is slowly getting through that advertising creative has to expand outside its Yoof-centric ghetto, if for no other reason than the barrage of news that shows the levels of youth unemployment – boomerang kids, dependence on “bank mum and dad” etc etc. Yoof is having a tough time and has lost its lure for advertisers. This brings us to the number one issue.
The really biggie.

The Recession. The perilous state of the economy in the UK, much of Europe and the US is scary. 2010 is going to be a turning point – unfortunately I am not convinced that it is turning in the right direction. At best it will be dreadful. At worst – you don’t want to know. If you want the gory details then have a read of Robert Peston’s 31st December blog. Peston is the BBC’s head economics journalist.

One thing for sure is that for marketers, willing to think outside the box and have the guts to take chances, there will be lots of opportunities for relieving the 50-plus of their hard earned cash.

Happy New Year. Dick Stroud.

Who reads, listens and watches what?

I started to read the press release from Deloitte’s research “State of the media democracy” and nearly lost the will to live. I went to Deloitte’s web site to look for more details. No luck there.
Fortunately Chuck Nyren persevered and wrote a good blog posting about the research.

The next e-mail I read was from Bain and detailed their research Building Brands Online: An Interactive Advertising Action Plan. If this is your bag then this is an excellent report and well promoted. Deloitte’s you could learn a lot of lessons from Bain. Dick Stroud

Where do the 65+ go online

The secret is out. Most of them go nowhere and the rest go to just about the same place as you and me.

According to the NielsenWire Online, in the US the 65+ still make up less than 10% of the active Internet universe, although in the last five years their number has increased by more than 55%. Interestingly, the increase of women online has outpaced the growth of men by 6%.


Time spent on the Internet by increased 11% and now stands at over 58 hours per week in 2009.

The research director, at Nielsen's online notes that: "The over 65 crowd represents about 13% of the total population and... they're engaged in many of the same activities that dominate other age segments - e-mail, sharing photos, social networking, checking out the latest news and weather... (in addition) a good percentage of them are spending time with age-appropriate pursuits such as leisure travel, personal health care and financial concerns."

The next time somebody asks you the question you have the answer. Dick Stroud

Designing web sites for ageing cavemen

As usual, Jakob Nielsen's December Alertbox newsletter contains some thought proving stuff.

It is all about short-term memory and web usability. The central thesis is that the brain is not optimised for the abstract thinking and memorising data that web sites often demand.

Most people can't keep much information in their short-term memory. This is especially true when they're bombarded with multiple abstract or unusual pieces of data in rapid succession. To make matters worse, aspects of cognitive ability decline with age.

Nielsen is running a series of workshops (all in the US) on this topic, titled "Usability and the Human Mind: How Your Customers Think." His first thought for the seminar was designing web sites for cavemen but he chicken-out and took the safe naming option instead.

It would seem that our short-term memory famously holds only about 7 chunks of information, and these fade from your brain in about 20 seconds. With this in mind it means that the web site design should ensure that:

• Response times must be fast enough that users don't forget what they're in the middle of doing while waiting for the next page to load.
• Change the colour of visited links so that users don't have to remember where they've already clicked.
• Make it easy to compare products, highlighting the salient differences on both the initial category page and in special comparison views.
• Offer help and user assistance features in the context where users need them so they don't have to travel to a separate help section and memorize steps before returning to the problem at hand.

To make matters more complicated there are big individual differences in user performance: the top 25% of users are 2.4 times better than the bottom 25%.

At the extreme, only about 4% of the population has enough brainpower to perform complex cognitive tasks such as making high-level inferences using specialized background knowledge.

You can see the problem, if your web designers (and yourself) are in the 4% group you are not going to be aware of the problems of the other 96%.

It looks like a great course. Let’s hope he brings it to Europe.Dick Stroud

A good insight into the 50-plus’s attitude towards technology

Earlier this year, 60 people gathered for dinner and after-dinner discussions about their attitudes toward, use of and expectations for technology. The lengthy sessions were in four cities: San Francisco, Phoenix, Chicago and New York. The participants ranged in age from 50 to 60. The event was sponsored by AARP and Microsoft.

The recordings of those conversations have been sifted and distilled, and the results published in a report called “Boomers and Technology: An Extended Conversation.”

I have to say that this is not the easiest document to read and to translate into “so what” conclusions.

The bottom line conclusions seem to be that this group were generally enthusiastic about techno gadgets and the use of technology that improves their dealings with the health care industry (e.g. electronic health records) and the ability to interface with their doctor online.

A repeated complaint was that products were cluttered with too many features that they were never likely to use. This is the joy of Apple's iPhone, it is a truly “feature on demand” product.
Worth downloading the report. Dick Stroud

Natural Born Clickers

Just 8% of Internet users account for 85% of all clicks. Of course we all know that the Pareto Effect (80:20) applies in most areas of business but I have never thought of it in terms of clicks. Why should I be surprised – but I am.

comScore researched this topic a couple of years back and has just updated the results. It shows that the number of people who click on display ads in a month has fallen from 32% of Internet users in July 2007 to only 16% in March 2009, with an even smaller core of people (representing 8% of the Internet user base) accounting for 85% of all clicks.

In 2007, comScore found that ‘Heavy’ clickers, representing 6% of U.S. Internet users and accounted for the top 50% of clicks. ‘Moderate’ users, 10% of Internet users accounting for 30% of the clicks, and ‘Light’ clickers, 20% of users producing 16% of the clicks. By March 2009, these numbers had changed substantially as you can see from the table.

comScore VP of marketing solutions and author of the study, made the very reasonable conclusion: "... marketers who attempt to optimize their advertising campaigns solely around the click are assigning no value to the 84% of Internet users who don't click on an ad... "

If anybody needed evidence that for most display ad campaigns, the click-through is not the most appropriate metric for evaluating campaign performance. Rather, advertisers should consider evaluating campaigns based on their view-through impact. Good stuff that applies to all ages. Dick Stroud

Technology use is becoming age-neutral

Motorola has just discovered the concept of age neutral behaviour. Better late than never.

The research study (Media Engagement Barometer) found that high percentages of Americans - across multiple generations - are using media and mobile technology. Age no longer dictates new media use. And surprisingly, influencers who drive usage are now found in every group. Well that is not totally true but Motorola has definitely confirmed something that a few of us have been banging on about.

What we are seeing is the highly engage technology group of older people is growing in size. It is expanding from the leading edge users to masses. Let’s be honest, using Facebook, Twitter, my beloved iPhone and all of the other goodies isn’t exactly difficult.

We have constructed this idea that only Yoof have the mental horsepower/agility to understand this stuff – plainly nonsense. For the tech aware members of an older generation that brought up trying to work out the mysteries of MSDOS it is all easy-peasy. Dick Stroud

Names mean different things to different ages of people

I have recently been in contact with Danny Altman who is the Founder and CEO of A Hundred Monkeys – now that is a name that gets your attention.

Danny was telling me about some work he did for a retirement homes company that shows how the connotations of a name varies by the age of the ear. This is his story

We have a naming and branding company in San Francisco and found ourselves working for three non-profit companies that merged into one group that ran 15 big retirement homes.

So we dived in and toured all the facilities and had a great time talking to the residents, aged 60 to about 95. We went through a long process and ultimately decided to go with the name Front Porch, which we thought was pretty laid back and friendly – definitely non-institutional.

Well some of the residents didn’t exactly agree with us. There was a minor revolt because some of them thought that Front Porch meant we were portraying them as old folks in rocking chairs, which was the last thing we were trying to do.
After the excitement died down, they got used to the idea. And as you can see, the overall image was pretty young and hip.

What’s the moral of the story? Most people who are over the hill are apparently not ready to be put out to pasture.

As you can see, the Front Porch web site is definitely not your usual ‘retirement’ type design. I think it is the most extreme example of an uncluttered site I have seen and all the better for that. How fascinating that the term “Front Porch” can have such different meanings and create so much angst. Dick Stroud

Ageing and the effectiveness of touchpoints

These charts were constructed using ZenithOptimedia’s ROI Tracker - a consumer research-based tool that measures and helps plan marketing activities across the range of brand contact touchpoints.

You can read more about this product and what it seems to tell us about age and touchpoint effectiveness by downloading this article.

Here are a couple of quotes from the article with my comments:

The ROI Tracker shows how contact effectiveness changes as consumers get older. At an all-touchpoints level, it shows that contact influence and levels of brand association decline swiftly as we get older. The older you are the less likely you are to respond to advertising. I suspect this is partly because older people are more familiar with brands and their advertising, probably more fixed in their ways and also less targeted by most advertising.

The big flaw in this type of analysis is that it doesn’t take account of type of the nature of products each age group are purchasing. If I am 20 I am not that likely to be thinking about buying a washing machine, or am I falling into the trap of stereotyping? Overall, I agree with the article’s analysis other than the dreaded “more fixed in their ways”. Ahhhh

The influence of internet search rises as we get older, exceeding TV advertising in influence by the time we are 45. Other online touchpoints that display similar growth in influence as we get older include product comparison websites, brand websites, retailer sites and consumer opinion sites.
There may be a simple reason for this: as we get older we become wealthier but, paradoxically, steadily more value conscious. We are more likely to look for bargains (in-store promotions also get more influential with age), and the internet is a great place to go looking for bargains.

The rationale for the results might be true in some circumstances but I think is way to simplistic. The reason for the importance of search is much more likely to be influenced by the complexity and value of the shopping basket of products being purchased by the different age groups.

Here are the definitions of the things being measured. Brand Association = the percentage of consumers associating each brand with each touchpoint. Influence = the relative influence of each touchpoint on purchasing.

No doubt about it, this is an interesting type of analysis. I counsel about making too many conclusions based on these high level results. I am sure the devil is in the detail of the analysis. Anybody got any thoughts? Dick Stroud

RIAS’s aquatic customers

Back in September I talked about RIAS’s TV advertising campaign featuring the "real life" of an over-50s consumer.

The company has just launched a new home insurance ad that recognises that today's over 50s are active, individual, busy and experienced. This tale of the everyday 50-plus features a volunteer lifeboatman.

I expect that the choice of the lifeboat theme has a lot to do with the popularity of these people and their charity with older Brits.

What made me smile is that RIAS is perpetuating the fascination that companies have with older people and water. The first ad featured a women long distance swimmer. So many ads have older people on the beach, wobbling around on surf boards or running hand in hand through the waves. I am sure the reason I notice this water thing is that I hate the stuff – not the washing or drinking variety but the sort that get you wet.

Anyway, RIAS is highly successful company and I am sure they have done their homework and tested the ad to destruction with the target market.

Finally, a personal plea to the new marketing director of the company who is on record as saying that she intends to make more use of digital media. After spending a pile of money on a new ad and PR campaign why not ensure that you digital media, like this ad, is at least available on YouTube or your the web site? Dick Stroud

Mr Google looks into his crystal ball

When the CEO of Google gets his crystal ball out and looks to the next 5 years it is worth 6 minutes of your life to listen to what he has to say. If you have 45 minutes that you are willing to spare then you can listen to the complete version of Eric Schmidt’s interview in front of the assembled hoards of CIOs and IT Directors at last week's Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Orlando.

Nothing specific about the 50-plus but essential listening for all marketers, irrespective of their target market.

For me the most interesting comment was his prediction that the distribution distinctions between TV, radio and the web will go away. Certainly video will (is) dominate the Web. Don’t forget that there is only one company that focuses on Web video made for older consumers. Dick Stroud

Simplicity - a new computer for oldies

Full marks to Discount Age, the company that has launched the Simplicity computer. A wise choice of celebrity ensured that this new computer got a lot of radio and television exposure.

This 'simple' computer costs a bit more than your standard PC but for this you get an open source based computer with the Eldy software that hides all of the techno gunk allowing the user to get on with their simple applications of e-mail, browsing, printing etc. You also get a pile of videos showing you to use the thing.

It will be interesting to see how then venture gets on. My bet is that if somebody hasn’t bought a computer by now then this new product will not be enough for them to get out their credit card. Maybe it will be attractive children to buy one for their parent’s Xmas? The declared market for the product is the 50-plus. I don't think so, much more likely to be that group of the 70-plus who have tried to get their heads around using a PC but gave up but who still have a real requirement to be online - probably to keep in contact with their family.

The new computer is interesting, but I was more fascinated by the parent company, that sells a newsletter (£10/year) providing discount opportunities for the over -60s.

There are a lot of people trying to attack this market. Way back in 2007 I talked with Daniel Wilson when he started seniors discounts. It is amazing how this has grown. At one stage he tried to charge for membership but it appears as if this has now been dropped. I think Val Singleton and her friends might discover the problem for all people trying to charge for content – including the 50-plus - is the expectation that content is free. Dick Stroud

Twitter status of US users

This is really interesting. Those who Twitter in the US look as if they are just as likely to have an MBA as being a High School drop-out. As you would expect the user base is still predominantly young. This analysis is from Pew Internet and appears in its reported entitled Twitter status of users. Dick Stroud

Pew Internet research on the democratization of social networks

Social network services users have gone from being classic early adopters (i.e. Male, highly educated, young to middle-aged, urban) to become every man and woman – with a continued skew towards youth and as diverse, if not more than the internet-using population.

This doesn’t mean that more older adults aren’t flocking to social networks, they are, but younger adults are also still using these networks, so the overall representation of the age cohorts in the user population has actually gotten younger.

I think that is trying to say is that you are now getting all types of younger people using these networks, which is keeping the age profile young, however, you are also getting a lot of older users who are coming from a limited profile of society. Why don’t you download the presentation and make your own mind up. Dick Stroud

Sky TV reinforces its commitment to accessibility

A while back I wrote about Sky gaining an award for its work in making its TV controls more usable. I was not so impressed by the usability of the company’s Web site.

Looks like things are changing since Sky has just launched a new “accessible” site. It is really good. Well done Sky. Dick Stroud

The 50-plus are the best stock traders

A big caveat, so beware. I have not idea how good or bad this research is (conducted by Fintrader.net) but I think the results are fascinating, even if they are wrong.

Here are some quotes:

A new five year study of financial trading shows that the over 50s are by far the most successful, profitable traders and investors: a full 40% more profitable than their 20-something counterparts and 25% better than the 30-50 group.

Time spent trading was a factor for all three groups. The 18-30s and over 50s spent more time on their portfolios, which may be because the 30-50 group had greater work and family commitments elsewhere. But clearly the over 50s had much greater productivity.

The 50+ traders took higher risks for higher returns than the 30-50 group. So maybe the 50-plus are not more risk averse argument

The secret to the difference between youth and age lay in discipline. The 18-30s tended to break trading rules and failed to follow systems through. Maybe they had poor attention spans as they would often close out winning trades too soon. Older traders kept better records and managed their money better.

The 18-30s made great use of internet information, charts and chat rooms but so did the over-50s (more than the 30-50s), becoming extremely web savvy and using a wide range of online tools. So maybe the 50-plus are capable of using the Internet.

Older investors are sick of earning 1% a year and being sucked dry by high management costs for poor advice and are now learning to trade markets themselves.

One theme which is common to all groups is “total distrust of financial advisors and professionals. Really bad news for the Financial Services industry

My instincts tell me these results are probably correct but then I might be falling into the trap of using age stereotypes. Dick Stroud

A SAGA about Web site usability

Web designers often complain that conforming to the rules of usability constrains their ability to be ‘creative’. Most marketers would probably agree.

As a result, companies persist in using Web sites that could be far friendlier to their users and more efficient in communicating with prospective customers. In today’ s trouble times, alienating potential customers is not an option.

Abiding by the fundamentals tenets of usability means users of all ages have an improved Web browsing experience. But, it is older consumers who are the big winners. When older people complain how difficult it is to navigate a Web site it invariably results from one (or more) usability mistakes.

What better Web site to use to illustrate a white paper about usability than that of Saga, a company dedicated to older people and who you would think would be top of the usability class. Dick Stroud

Prudential - new advertising campaign

This weekend the quality newspapers were full of a new advertising campaign from Prudential.

I like it.

I like it because it clearly understands the concerns of the older consumer who has seen their investments and pension expectations taken a hammering by the recession.

Another ad, that uses the same guy, has the copy:

At 65 you should have a lot to look forward to.
And it isn’t just being 66.

The body of the copy says:

Clichés about retirement often pain a pretty picture. Twenty years of gold, grandchildren and pottering about the garden, but you probably know from your own parents it’s rarely that simple.

Life’s day to day demands have a habit of scuppering long term plans……..

I really like the style. Note that the ad appears to be targeted at the children of the 65+ but I am sure it will also have an impact with the older consumer.

I was also impressed to see that Prudential was making use of Web video. It a long (25 mins) pension surgery with Alvin Hall and a retirement specialist from Prudential. Impressive stuff. Dick Stroud

Web video goes mainstream

In the middle of last year I started a company called InTwoFocus that produces Web video for companies wanting to communicate with the older consumer.

Since then the world has moved on and Web video has become a mainstream part of many companies marketing communications.
For instance, video as a form of collateral for “White Papers” nearly doubled between 2008 and 2009.

This article “Thanks To Technology, Video is Everywhere” provides further confirmation of the explosive growth of video as the preferred mechanism for online communications.

If you haven’t got Web video as part of your marketing plans you should have! Dick Stroud

Oldies dominate online charitable giving

A spokesman for JustGiving, leading online platform for charity giving, said 25% of the funds raised on the site were from people aged 45 and over who gave more than £50.

He said a further 33% cent of revenue was from donors aged 55 and over. Also, it would be wrong to assume that younger donors were used to giving online, he said, because for 45% of 18 to 24-year-olds, their JustGiving donation was the first time they had used the internet to donate to charity.

The message is clear: "Ignore your older donors online at your peril. People aged between 17 and 24 make up only 7% of the site’s revenue, and people over 65 counts for 11%.

He went on to say:” It’s easy to get carried away with the ‘new breed' of online donors, because their contribution is important. But charities shouldn't forget about the ‘old breed' too," he said.
Having used the JustGiving web site I can vouch that it is extremely good.

Another bit of proof, as if any is needed, about the importance of the online 50-plus, 60-plus and 70-plus. Dick Stroud

Everything you ever wanted to know about the UK’s digitally excluded

I have already written about the campaign that is sort of going on to get more people in the UK online.

Anyway, this week a report was published that quantified the economic benefit of getting everybody in the UK surfing and twittering. A tidy little sum of £22 Billion. My first thought was: “I wonder what the benefit would be of getting everybody in the UK able to read?” Don’t let’s start thinking about that subject….

The absolute amount of £s value doesn’t matter since that is pure speculation by the consultants (PWC). As an ex-consultant, I can tell that the writers of this report must have used copious amounts of wet seaweed/tea leaves/fingers in the air....

The point of telling you this is to point you to the report. I am not sure what you will do with it since it tells us what we already know about age and the Internet. Education/class/employment trumps age, when predicting Internet use and there are a large number of over-65 year olds who just don’t want to use the Web, as amazing as this fact is to the UK’s political class.

If you want lots of numbers about who is and who isn’t using the Internet then this is a good reference source. Dick Stroud

The 50-plus and the hospitality industry

This is a very simplistic eleven minutes of video about online marketing in the Hospitality Industry.

You know the story: “older people are not like they were when you were a kid” and “the Web can be really good for testimonials” etc etc.

I really hope the speaker (university professor) teaches something a bit more sophisticated on her courses. Pity the company that produced the video didn’t enable it to be embedded into other Web sites. Dick Stroud

Web usability - good advice

Thanks to the guys Immersion Active for this link about 10 tips to improve web usability. It is a nicely presented article and the content is bang on.

1. Form Labels Work Best Above The Field
2. Users Focus On Faces
3. Quality Of Design Is An Indicator Of Credibility
4. Most Users Do Not Scroll
5. Blue Is The Best Color For Links
6. The Ideal Search Box Is 27-Characters Wide
7. White Space Improves Comprehension
8. Effective User Testing Doesn’t Have To Be Extensive
9. Informative Product Pages Help You Stand Out
10. Most Users Are Blind To Advertising

These are all basic things but still web designers ignore/forget or try and be too clever and break the rules. Dick Stroud

Internet use and the 50-plus

The Oxford Internet Survey, part of the University of Oxford, has undertaken a survey of 2,013 people, 916 who were 50+. The results have been analysed by Mature Times who has concluded:

Only 51.5% of the 50+ have access to the Internet, compared to 81.7% amongst 25-49 year olds, and only 45.1% use computers (compared to 81.2%).

The older the respondent, the less likely he/she is to use the Internet and there is a significant drop of user rates at the end of 50s, and another drop at the end of 60s. In the age group 50-54 years, 73.4% are Internet users, but only 19.7% in the age group 75+ are.

Income is a significant factor as the lower the socio economic group, the less likely it is that a person will own a computer – and many of those living on a pension are in the lowest income groups. In the 50+ group, only 17.2% of lowest income group are Internet users; however, they make up 36% of the population in that age group.

The complete report can be downloaded (free) from here. Dick Stroud

1 sec maximum for your Web site to make an impact

It does make me laugh when clients get hung-up on the exact phraseology of their web site copy but pretty much ignore the overall impact of the page design. In future I will tell to read this edition of Alertbox.

Jackob Nielsen reckons that people can make rough decisions about a Web page's visual appeal after being exposed to it for as little as 50 ms.

In his eyetracking studies, most of the fixations are for little more than 0.1 seconds.

Nielsen believes that when the computer takes more than 0.1 second but less than 1 second to respond to your input, it feels like the computer is causing the result to appear. Although users notice the short delay, they stay focused on their current train of thought during the one-second interval.

This means that during 1-second response times, users retain the feeling of being in control of the interaction even though they notice that it's a 2-way interaction (between them and the computer). By contrast, with 0.1 second response times, users simply feel like they're doing something themselves.

For Web usability, this means that new pages must display within 1 second for users to feel like they're navigating freely; any slower and they feel held back by the computer and don't click as readily.

I can see no reason why these observations don’t apply equally, if not more so, to the older Web user. Dick Stroud

1 sec maximum for your Web site to make an impact

It does make me laugh when clients get hung-up on the exact phraseology of their web site copy but pretty much ignore the overall impact of the page design. In future I will tell to read this edition of Alertbox.

Jackob Nielsen reckons that people can make rough decisions about a Web page's visual appeal after being exposed to it for as little as 50 ms.

In his eyetracking studies, most of the fixations are for little more than 0.1 seconds.

Nielsen believes that when the computer takes more than 0.1 second but less than 1 second to respond to your input, it feels like the computer is causing the result to appear. Although users notice the short delay, they stay focused on their current train of thought during the one-second interval.

This means that during 1-second response times, users retain the feeling of being in control of the interaction even though they notice that it's a 2-way interaction (between them and the computer). By contrast, with 0.1 second response times, users simply feel like they're doing something themselves.

For Web usability, this means that new pages must display within 1 second for users to feel like they're navigating freely; any slower and they feel held back by the computer and don't click as readily.

I can see no reason why these observations don’t apply equally, if not more so, to the older Web user. Dick Stroud

Google and Wharton’s Fast Forward - what a distraction

I am not doing you any favours writing this blog posting.

I have just discovered the Fast Forward venture

Google and The Wharton School have partnered to gather and provide quick perspective on managing the change in the marketing landscape. As we explore what will define success through marketing’s continual evolution, we aim to share ideas and lessons learned to help keep us all better informed and effective as the game - and conversation - rapidly progresses.

I could spend ages on this site. This is a perfect way for marketers to while away the hours when they should be doing something more productive. I think it is great but could seriously affect my productivity. Dick Stroud

I despair at my fellow Brits

I have already written about the idiocy of charging all UK households a “broadband tax” if this wasn't bad enough today we learn that the UK’s digital infrastructure now ranks 25th in the global league table.

This blog post is not about the subject but the reaction of my fellow citizens when they are asked about the tax and the other idiotic proposal for ISPs to log their customer’s Internet traffic.

The Yoof interviewed clearly think the old live on another digital-free planet and many of the older people interviewed seem as if they have completely lost the plot. Cripes. Dick Stroud

A youthful online Readers Digest?

I reckon the Readers Digest must have had more press coverage in the past month than for last couple of years. First the company sought bankruptcy protection, then sold its list of members and now is looking to revamp its global online activities to, in the words of the FT: “to attract a younger audience to a brand suffering from its associations with doctors’ waiting rooms and elderly readers.”

Why does this send a shudder down my spine? I can smell the work consultants a mile away.

“We were the Google News of the 1920s. We were the original aggregator,” said, the newly promoted general manager of readersdigest.com. I can just see that phrase: the Google News of the 1920s, on a PowerPoint slide, stimulating a lot of nodding heads from the RD audience.

The FT goes on to say:

Starting with the Netherlands and China, where a redesigned website goes live this week, the group is planning to replace a patchwork of international sites, each designed separately by local teams and carrying a different selection of content, with a single, coherent platform.

I sort of understand why it is launching in Netherlands because of the very successful Yours magazine that is targeted at the older market. Why China?

How is the business going to make money? Advertising and sales of books and CDs – NO charging for content - that's what they say.

Can you believe it, there is even work going on for an application for Apple’s iPhone. More sensibly there will also be a version for Amazon’s Kindle.

I totally agree with the comments about this venture in BrandChannel

RD's biggest hurdle is the brand's staid reputation. While its brand equity shouldn't be discounted -- they maintain mass audience appeal and name recognition -- it may take more than nifty customization tools to give the aging publisher its Fountain of Youth.

It is a pity that RD only decided to drag its web presence into today’s world when the magazine failed. Methinks there were internal battles between the online and print. Let’s hope they haven’t left it too late.

Above are the today’s US and UK web sites. As you can see, totally different. I bet they use different content management technologies and construction technologies. Dick Stroud

Jakob Nielsen's September Alertbox contains some pearls of wisdom, as usual

Nielsen's summary of the article says:

Users hate change, so it's usually best to stay with a familiar design and evolve it gradually. In the long run, however, incrementalism eventually destroys cohesiveness, calling for a new UI architecture.

He is absolutely right. Why Web designers are impelled to look for clever new ways of doing things, to confuse the site users, never ceases to amaze me.

Older web site users are really happy with the familiar. Unless your changes add tangible value to the user - don’t bother . Dick Stroud

Is the wisdom of crowds for the gullible?

A lot is made about the importance of word-of-mouth as a means of informing the decisions of older consumers. The connection is often made between WOM and the user generated commentary that litters web sites from delighted or aggrieved purchasers.

An academic in Portugal (Vassilis Kostakos) has been digging around in the voting patterns on Amazon, the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), and the book review site BookCrossings.

He and his team looked at hundreds of thousands of items and millions of votes across the three sites. In each case, they found that a small number of users accounted for a large number of ratings. For example, only 5% of active Amazon users cast votes on more than 10 products. A handful of users voted hundreds of items.

If you have two or three people voting 500 times," says Kostakos, the results may not be representative of the community overall. He suspects this may be why ratings often tend toward extremes. I reckon you are right!

One of the suggestions, accompanying this research, is that the number of time a person has voted/commented should be shown (assuming this is technically possible). Sounds like a good idea.

I guess we all know that whenever we see a “research result” that results from some informal online poll that the answer must be skewed because the types of people that respond to such things are not ‘normal’. Good to see some research that proves that’s true. Dick Stroud

Usability evaluation of three social networking sites

It is a long time since I have looked at the SURL (Software Usability Research Laboratory) web site.

This organisation does some fantastic Web site usability research.

The item that caught my eye was the analysis of MySpace, Facebook and Orkut.

It is impossible to summarise this research in a few pithy comments but basically the results showed problems related to confusing terminology, inadequate feedback and error messages, and poor link location. All of these impacted user performance and satisfaction.

These are the bottom line recommendations on how to improve the overall use of social network sites:

1. Use consistent and familiar terminology.

2. Provide a brief explanation for terms that are unique to the site (e.g. PhotoCube on MySpace, Testimonials on Orkut, Boxes on Facebook).

3. Provide sufficient feedback to the users. Too often the users repeated failed actions simply because they were not sure if the system had performed their initial task.

4.Improve link placement. Uploading a profile picture, finding the chat link and looking for the Settings option should be easy tasks to perform and should be placed within easy view of the user on the profile homepage.

These comments apply to all ages but particularly the 50-plus. Dick Stroud

The perils of hosting content on third party web sites

As usual, a fascinating posting on the UseIT web site. This is not specific about the 50-plus, but if you have any responsibility for web content then you should read.

Most of the article is about the risks you take when your video hosting is a third party, like YouTube, because they control the thumbnail of the video presented on your web site.

It is a subject I have never considered before but when you look at the examples it is blindingly clear how the usability of the site can be degraded. Dick Stroud

Twitter more popular among over-50s than the young

Twice as many 50-64-year-olds than 18-24-year-olds in the UK use Twitter, according to research from Nielsen Online. The 50-64-year-old users account for 22% of the entire Twitter audience, compared with just 11% of 18-24-year-olds.

The biggest share of the audience is 35-49-year-olds (33%), followed by 50-64-year-olds (22%) and 25-34-year-olds (22%). A year ago the share of 25-34-year-olds using the site was 5% higher.

So have the young seen the futility of Twitter and the old just keep at it because they think it is cool and easier to use than texting, or is there really some value in microblogging. Right now my vote goes to the young. Dick Stroud

It is not a secret - we are in a recession

I am amazed how few companies are reflecting the fact that most people are, in one way or another, concerned about the recession.

OK, some people are doing well and some doing really badly and there are lot in the middle who don’t know which of these two groups they will join over the coming months.

Great to see that my chums in Holland who run a 50-plus agency are reflecting the reality. As much as I hate Web Intro pages I reckon this works. Dick Stroud

Constructing tweets that people read

When Jakob Nielsen puts his mind to understanding how to gain the most effectiveness from a Tweet it is worth reading his conclusions, one of which is that Twitter time passes 10 times faster than email time (i.e. you have a tenth of the time to grab attention)

It looks to me that most of the rules of writing attention and search engine grabbing e-mail subjects also apply to Twitter.

Unlike Nielsen, I cannot promise to use his rules when writing own Tweets. Dick Stroud

Do Yoof know something we don’t?

I have probably already covered this story – if so – I am sorry. Put it down to cognitive decline.

Nielsen, like Morgan Stanley, reckons that teenagers don't like Twitter.

According to Nielsen, only 16% of Twitter users were under the age of 25, yet they represent a quarter of all internet users.

Twitter has grown massively in the past six months - it is now used by about 10% of all active internet users, even though it is shunned by children, teens and young adults.

I think this must be one of the first instances of a radically new Web service being driven by the older age groups. Is this a preview of the future? Can’t kids think about anything to write in 140 characters?

Maybe, they are right and Twitter is a complete waste of time. Dick Stroud

More factlets about the rate of adoption of new services by the 50-plus

There is a plethora of research being published that compares the digital habits of Gen Y and Baby Boomers. It all shows the same thing, plateauing of uptake by the young, rapid rate of uptake by the oldies.

Of course the explanation for the high growth rates is due to the low starting base in 2008. However, it does tell a message about the way that older people are entering the domain of Yoof and using their digital toys. Dick Stroud

Online, ‘a Reason to Keep on Going’

This excellent article from the New York Times explains one of the great motivations for older people to use the Internet and in particular social networking.

Online contact is a way of overcoming social isolation and clearly a lot of older people are using digital technology to replace ways of interacting that their bodies no longer permit. Definitely worth a read. Dick Stroud

Grey Power - specialising in the insurance needs of mature Canadians.

I have been travelling in Canada. When overseas it is always fascinating watching TV ads and wandering around shopping malls looking at how other countries tackle 50-plus marketing.

I have seen a lot of ads for Grey Power. This is not from the current ad campaign which I think a lot better. The company has a nice clear web site and a simple and compelling message. Looks good to me. Dick Stroud

Including the digitally excluded

There is a lot of chat about enabling the digitally excluded to jump the chasm and reap the benefits of the digital world.

Mostly it is just talk.

Many older people, mainly in their late sixties, seventies and eighties, don’t have the desire, patience or perceived need to get to grips with PCs, Windows and all of the paraphernalia of needed to use the Internet.

I have written about a UK company called Finerday that is trying to make this jump a little easier. Now I have discovered a US company (Famililink) with the same intention and not dissimilar technical approach.

The question niggling me is that if an older person learns enough to be able to use either of these services why will you not go the extra 10% and start using generic software. No doubt somebody will answer that question.

There are very few organisations that are doing the hard work and providing services to help older people take the first steps and get to grips with the wonders of IT.

In the UK, Digital Unite is leader. I wonder if there are equivalents in other parts of the world? Dick Stroud

Importance of middle-aged women

Here are a couple of factlets for you about the Web use of UK women.

According to a study that will be published in the summer by the Internet Advertising Bureau and that is being conducted by Nielsen Online, women between the ages of 35 and 49 are now the largest demographic group on the web, representing 15% of the UK online population.

The next largest demographic group is 18-34-year old women and 35-49 year-old men, each representing 14% of the internet audience. How interesting. Dick Stroud

It’s obvious – why bother with the research

Reckon you know something about fonts, older people and browsers. See how you get on with these questions:

"In this day and age, most people who need to increase their font sizes in their web browser already know how to do it." Right or Wrong?

"People who do need to resize type will do so via the browser; it's not hard to do so." Rights or Wrong?

"It's not 1995; not all 50+ people are such newbies that they don't know, or wouldn't want to know, how to resize text in a browser." Right or Wrong?

"The people who most need to increase font size are people 65+, which is the group least-likely to be skilled enough to have adjusted settings." Right or Wrong?

Now go an have a look at the latest edition of Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for the answers and find out how some hot shots from the Web design world got on with the questions. Dick Stroud

Watching web video is becoming age neutral

According to Nielsen Online, YouTube continued to rank as the No. 1 video Web brand with 5.5 billion total streams in April 2009. During this month, people between the ages of 35 and 49, was the fastest growing demographic in time spent viewing per viewer, increasing 29% during the past six months. This was 13% higher than the growth of time spent viewing per viewer for the overall market, which increased 16% over the same 6-month period.

It’s great to see this increasing acceptance of Web video by the older age group since I own a video production company (InTwoFocus) that specialises in this market. Thanks to Reg Starkey for telling me about this research. Dick Stroud

Vendors who should target boomers and seniors

If you are interested in the role of technology for the older person then visiting Laurie Orlov’s Ageing in Place Technology blog is a must.

This posting is typical of the style and content that you find on this blog. Orlov makes the case why tech vendors should get their act together and realise that they are already selling a pile of product to an older consumer and if they diverted a fraction of their Yoof marketing budget they might sell a lot more.

Companies discussed are Adobe, Cisco, iRobot, Sony, AMD, Apple, Dell and Verizon. Dick Stroud

What Mr Occam can tell Web designers

Every so often you read a blog posting and wish you had written it. This one is about the lessons that can be learnt from the logic of Occam’s Razor. I first came upon Mr Occam in the film ‘Contact’ with Jodie Foster, in which she says that: “it is the scientific principle that, all things being equal, the simplest answer is usually the right one."

Well strictly speaking this is not true. Mr Occam actually said: “"one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything." If you want to get into the absolute details of what he said have a look at the Wikipedia definition

Anyway, the blog post uses the idea of Occam to make some extremely sensible conclusions about how it applies to online design. This should be mandatory reading for all Web designers. Dick Stroud

Finerday is working

Way back in July 2007 I wrote about a new web site called Finerday.

My next posting was in September 2007 when I gave a more detailed commentary.

A lot has happened in the last 10 months.

I must congratulate the guys on producing a truly innovative web site that provides both a really simple interface for older people whilst making the site attractive to the younger person.

Believe me that is no small feat.

Along with getting the basic functionality to a working state the site now provides very effective screen capture videos in its “how to do” section.

I still have my concerns and doubts but we can leave those for another day.

Finerday has produced a communications engine that could enable older people, who might never use generic communications software, to get the advantages of messaging and networking with their friends and family. Well done. Dick Stroud

Brand storytelling and Google analytics

A while back I wrote about an excellent paper by Nicholine Hayward on the dusty old subject of Strategic Planning.

Nichole has just released a new paper about Brand Storytelling (Motive, Means and Opportunity) that shows how the most exciting and effective stories always benefit the consumer as much as the brand.

Much of the paper is about McDonalds and with the help of Google keywords and other tools she show how by getting down to the detail of the company’s Web traffic it is possible to improve the brand dialogue between it and its customers a vice versa.

It really is a great paper and beautifully written and whilst not directly about the 50-plus it contains ideas and techniques that apply to all age groups. Dick Stroud

Clothes for the older women – as bad ‘on’ as off-line

There is an excellent article in the WSJ about the idiocy of why companies continue to ignore the spending potential of older women. If you have a WSJ subscription you read it here.

The focus of the article is about the way that the new online fashion sites continue to ape their off-line equivalents.

A new site has been launched called StyleCaster that appears to be a lot more than a simple online catalog by using video and social-networking techniques – “The Facebook of Fashion”. Other sites mentioned are ShopFlick and SmashingDarling.


I had a look at these three sites and it clear from the creative that they are aimed at my daughter or granddaughter, assuming I had such things.

The image of regular contributors, from Style Caster, says it all.

All of this would be OK if it were not for the facts. 45-54 year olds spend twice as much online as their daughters. Not surprisingly the average age of an online customer at Saks.com, Saks Fifth Avenue's Web site is 42. "We wouldn't be getting that if we were limited to 18 to 34," says the president of Saks's online division, which the company considers its second-biggest store after its New York flagship.

The article’s author concludes with an amusing and insightful statement...... When it comes to online shopping, there may be a self-fulfilling prophecy at work: I can't find much appeal in sites that market only to twentysomethings. Thus, when I don't buy from those sites, they may continue to believe that the "hasn't-bought-a-house-yet" demographic is their best bet. Dick Stroud

What do the rich look like online?

Looking for US online consumers with deep pockets – look no further. Over 40% are in the age group 35-54 and 36% are 45+. This is according to eMarketer that has rehashed numbers from comScore.

I wonder how this profile matches up with the target age groups of most online properties?

Thanks to BitBriefs.com for referencing these stats. If, like me, you are interested in factlets then it is worth checking out. Dick Stroud

Twitter demographics

This is a good summary of Twitter demographics amongst older age groups. Also, you might want to have a look at this presentation that includes a session from the guy at Twitter who is responsible for business applications.Dick Stroud

Designing web sites for the older users

It is nice to see an age related web design article that starts by talking some common sense.

The discussion on web design for older site visitors often drifts towards accessibility and gets mixed up with looking at disabilities rather abilities, but this should not always be a given.

Not every person over 65 years has eyesight so poor that they have to increase text size or change the contrast of text colours. Not every person over the retirement age has problems with motor control or significant short term memory loss. The diversity of the 65+ user group is enormous.

A website might be easy to use for someone over 75 years old simply because they're experienced web surfers or familiar with the site. In contrast you might find someone younger, but with less Internet experience, struggling to use the same site.

It is not a bad list of things to do and not to do. My only gripe is that it doesn’t cover any of the issues of using Web 2.0 technology, especially AJAX. Dick Stroud

Don't use technology use as a proxy

At one time the following twaddle, taken from an article about the Retail Industry, would have really annoyed me.

As is always the case, one generation’s “noise” is another generation’s music. One thing I do get is that those who are in the social media vibe are tuned into a life rhythm that is much faster, more intense, and less tangible than what most of us aging boomers have ever experienced before. Meaningful participation in social media is probably too big of a goal for a baby boomer.

Perhaps an appreciative awareness and acceptance is the best that we can hope to achieve when it comes to the phenomenon.

As it pertains to retailing, an appreciative awareness is really all that is needed to make social media work, providing that you also have a sufficient number of millennial buzz-savvy staff members who know the how-to’s of actually putting it to work.

This person is clearly one of the breed of older people who fumbles about with their notebook when giving a presentation gurgling about: “I normally get my grandchildren to help me out” or some other fatuous statement.

There is another type of older person, typified by Gordo (age 58), who thinks that it is cool to use the Web; even better, something called “social media” to communicate to the ‘young’ and in the process makes a complete twat of himself.

There is another type of oldie that thinks that understanding digital stuff is an ageing virility symbol (i.e. I know as much about this stuff as any yoof).

The more attention that is drawn to the way older people use digital the worse it becomes, because it forces people into stereotypes. Even worse is to use technology savvyness as some form of proxy for the lifestyle behaviour of the individual. Dick Stroud

Strategic Planning for the real world

Strategic Planning has gone out of fashion, mores the pity. Tactics is everything has been the motto of most organisations – and politicians. Perhaps we should label this the era of:"Don't confuse me with the facts."

This paper from Nicholine Hayward is a real breath of fresh air that illustrates how strategy and tactics can come together.

Just download it and have a quick scan – you will see what I mean. Even if you miss out on the strategy bit, the details about the tools available to understand the online world are invaluable.

This is how the author describes herself:

Half consultant, half leader of thought and half agent of change, I am a different kind of planner. This difference manifests itself in, for example, a unique research methodology I have developed, which harnesses online data sources, to deliver authentic consumer insights which can be applied to devise resonant integrated strategies. Some of Grey London’s most exciting and effective recent work, including several successful pitches, is based directly on these insights.

What Nicholine is talking about is as applicable to the 50-plus as any other group of consumers. Dick Stroud

Making it easier to share my blog postings

Something I have been meaning to do for ages is to add functionality to make it easier for people to share my pearls of wisdom.

You will find the Share button on each posting so if you want to Twitter, StubleUpon, E-mail or the other host of things you can do with a blog posting all you need to do is roll the mouse over the button and fire away.

I have checked the functionality out with IE, Chrome and Firefox browsers but if you find any problems with other varieties please let me know. Dick Stroud

New online seminar about 50-plus marketing

My thanks to John Rae (CACI Ltd), Sarah Robson (Millennium), Stephen Croncota (Haggar Clothing), Janet Kiddle (Steel Magnolia), Gill Walker (Evergreen), Chuck Nyren (Consultant) and Arjan in’t Veld (Inthefield) for contributing to Henry Stewart's online seminar about the: “Latest thinking in marketing to the older consumer”.

What seems like a lifetime ago, Henry Stewart asked me to contribute and edit this series. The gestation period may have been long but the result has been worthwhile.

Sorry folks but this is not free content. You can get a feel of what it is all about by looking at the above link. My thanks to everybody who helped with the content and production of the seminar. Dick Stroud

Consumers' use screen media

Matt Thornhill’s excellent newsletter about Boomers referenced the Video Consumer Mapping Study conducted on behalf of the Nielsen-funded Council for Research Excellence (CRE) by Ball State University's Center for Media Design. This is no quick PR generating study but a $3.5 million year research project.

This page has links to the main documents resulting from the study. This is an Adobe copy of the research presentation (it is a BIG document 17 Mb).

It does the research project a disservice to try and distil the findings into a few single sentence headlines. Having said that it is the nature of blogging that you have to just that. I really do recommend that you download the report and study the results. I suspect it will dismiss some of the myths that have grown up about media consumption habits.

The research is US only but I am sure it applies to most of Europe.

• You might think that "free TV" via the Web consumes a substantial part of video watching – not true. It represents an average time of just two minutes a day.
• TV in the home still commands the greatest amount of viewing of the 18-24 age group.
• Even in major metropolitan areas, where commute times can be long and drive-time radio remains popular, computer use has replaced radio as the No. 2 media activity. Radio is now No. 3 and print media fourth.
• On average, TV users were exposed to 72 minutes per day of TV ads and promos dispelling the belief that today's consumers are channel-hopping or otherwise avoiding most of the advertising in the programming they view.

I found the above slide one of the most interesting. It shows the different types of video streams watched by age group and the amount of time spent on each. As the slide states, the 18-24 year group watch 10 different screen sources for longer than 10 mins/day compared with the 65+.

My bet is that these results vary considerably by socio economic class. I would think that your wealthy, better educated 55+, would have a much higher screen use of playback via DVR, mobile talk, mobile text and games console.

This is a really brilliant bit of research. Dick Stroud

Something worth Twittering about

Comscore Media Metrix have come up some fascinating demographic data about Twitter users. 18-24 year olds are 12% less likely than average to visit Twitter (Index of 88). It is the 25-54 year olds and 45-54 year olds who are the ones driving its use (i.e. this older group are 36% more likely than average to visit Twitter). Interesting to see the oldest groups are not your usual techno-laggards. The blog posting by this Reuter's guy is also worth reading. Maybe older people have more to talk about?

Link to the Accenture report

Many thanks to the guys at The Savvy Boomer for sending me a link to the Accenture report that I mentioned a couple of blog postings ago.

Another interesting finding from the research about the use of blogs and podcasts. Dick Stroud

Age and online advertising

Lightspeed Research and the Internet Advertising Bureau – the trade body for digital marketing in the UK have conducted a couple of interesting surveys about consumers’ response to online advertising.

One of the studies asked internet users when they believed they were most receptive to online advertising messages, and the best way to get their attention on the web.

The other research was all about understanding what consumers believe are the kinds of ads most likely to grab their attention online.

Both studies are worth a quick read. I have extracted the two bits of analysis that refer to the demographic differences. My usual gripe is that the research lumps everybody above 55 into one category. Unfortunately, this limits the usefulness of the research.

The messages that jump out of this analysis are that older people aren't interested in the entertaining quality of the ads. This might, almost certainly is, due to the fact that online ads are created for young people. This probably explains the response to “I don’t notice ads”. I was surprised that there was such a steep fall-off with age in the interest in money-off ads. Maybe that is because of the products that have money-off offers don't interest the older demographic?

Clearly the 18-24 year olds becoming progressively attentive to ads as the day unfolds whereas the oldies have a break for lunch. Overall I think the research raises more questions than it answers. Dick Stroud

Facebook is getting older and older

Just as pressed ‘publish’ for the last item about Facebook, another item popped-up in my inbox. This one is about a report just published by Nielsen (Global Faces and Networked Places). I suggest you have a look at this report.

Nielsen shows that Facebook’s greatest growth in global audience numbers come from people aged 35-49. Isn’t it nice when two bits of research come to the same conclusion!

For the sake of accuracy, Nielsen defines ‘global’ as Switzerland, Germany, UK, Italy, Spain, France, Australia, USA, Brazil. Don’t ask me why.

In terms of audience numbers the greatest growth for Facebook has come from people aged 35-49 years of age (+24.1 million). The social networking site added almost twice as many 50-64 year olds visitors (+13.6 million) than it has added under 18 year old visitors (+7.3 million). What a nice quote for your next presentation about oldies and Web!

In Nielsen’s own words: “Consequently, people under 18 years old are making up less of the social network and blogging audience, whereas the 50+ age group are accounting for more of the audience.”

The diagram shows data from Nielsen Online, Global Index, December 2007 – December 2008.

How interesting. Dick Stroud

Facebook gets older

A US research agency, iStrategyLabs, has published data that shows the demographic of Facebook users in the US.

Not that I understand how this works but the data comes from Facebook's Flyers advertising system that provides a demographic analysis of the Facebook population.

As you would expect the 18-24 year olds are the main users but the high levels of growth is coming from the older demographics.

You can download the spreadsheet with the data from here.

The bottom line is:

The 35-54 year old demo is growing fastest

The 55-plus are not far behind with a 194.3% growth rate – If they had split the

55-plus into 55-66 and 65+ the growth would have been even greater.

The 25-34 year population is doubling every 6 months

Pew Internet has given us some insight into the demographics of Twitter users.

As of December 2008, 11% of online American adults said they used Twitter or another service that allowed them to share updates about themselves or to see the updates of others. This seems a bit of a weird definition and liable to lead to confusion?

Pew concludes that:

Nearly 19% online adults ages 18 to 24 have used Twitter and its ilk as have 20% of online adults 25 to 34.

Use of these services drops off steadily after age 35 with 10% of 35 to 44 year olds and 5% of 45 to 54 year olds using Twitter.

The decline is even more stark among older internet users; 4% of 55-64 year olds and 2% of those 65 and older use Twitter.

I do hope that we are not going to start using the use of Twitter as a measure of Web literacy, a bit like using mobile phones was the benchmark for being technology literate. Dick Stroud

Web video and the 50-plus

About a year ago I realised that video will transform the way we use the Web. I also realised that nobody was providing a specialist service to provide Web video that works with the 50-plus. Do I smell a business opportunity?

At long last I have got my act together and formed a company that specialises in creating video content that works with older people, the 50-plus, 50+, Boomers – call them what you like. A great rarity for me I even produced a press release that explains what it is all about.

You can cut to the chase and look at the new company’s web site - InTwoFocus.

Hopefully out of small acorns and all of that…..

I somehow think that Web video will take up more of my blogging time. Dick Stroud

Age neutral ad from Confused.com

OK, it is a bit basic and employs the obvious approach of featuring the three target age groups but it is one of the first ads in the UK, for an online service, that very clearly targets the older Web user. Well done Confused.com. Dick Stroud

Self help Web site for Boomers

I came upon Boomerater that describes itself as: “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." That seems very reasonable.

This press release tells you more about the site.

I only had a quick look around but seems to be an easy to use site that is handling a reasonable amount of traffic. I am never sure how you make money out of this sort of venture but I suspect it stands more chance than the zillions of Boomer social networking sites. Dick Stroud

Nice age friendly web site

Benecol, the stuff that supposedly reduces your cholesterol, has a nice clean and attractive web site. I would cut out the animated image in the middle and make sure the arrow heads and home page icon in the menu are active, but overall I reckon it is a pretty good, age-friendly, web site.

Actually the Yogurt drinks taste pretty good as well. Dick Stroud

Why so many media sections of web sites fail

This is nothing to do with the 50-plus but about Web sites and blogging. Something that bloggers and journalists have in common is they often need to use the media section of web sites.

Most media sections of web sites could do with improvement.

If you want to read a detailed analysis of why they fail have a look at Jakob Nielsen's latest Alertbox. I quote.

Most of the PR sections of sites we've studied fail to support journalists in their quest for the facts, information, and contacts they can use to write stories about companies and their products.

Websites must be painfully clear about a company's purpose, products, and services. Websites for high-tech start-ups are particularly notorious for presenting generic, buzzword-filled mission statements that could apply equally well to both their worst competitors and companies producing completely different products.

If journalists can't find what they're looking for on a website, they might not include that company in their story. Journalists repeatedly said that poor website usability could reduce or completely eliminate their press coverage of a company.

I would add two other points.

When press release is issued it should immediately get added to the site. There is nothing more frustrating than reading a snippet of a story in the press and then finding that the press release is not on the site.

Second point. When a release refers to “a research study” – please, please reference where the study can be read or at least say that it is for internal consumption. Dick Stroud