I talked recently with Robin Wolaner, founder and CEO of TeeBeeDee, the latest social networking site launched for Boomers. Others include Eons, Boomj, Rezoom and Gather. Robin launched TeeBeeDee in September, backed by $4.8 million in venture capital. TeeBeeDee joins a wave of sites betting that Boomers will join younger audiences in adopting social networking in big numbers. She’s shown a knack for correct bets before, having launching Parenting Magazine in 1987 just as Boomers were becoming parents in droves. She later sold Parenting to Time Inc., where she continued to work on magazine success stories like Martha Stewart Living and Sunset Magazine.
Robin, are you a serial boomer entrepreneur? Parenting launched on the crest of the boomers-as-parents wave. Is it about generational information needs for you?
That’s the most positive way to say it! I keep sticking with what I know. I think it takes a lot more talent to do something for an audience you’re not part of. Fortunately the generation I’m a part of is a pretty big group. It feels easy to trust my gut, but TeeBeeDee isn’t just for Boomers. It’s a state of mind as muc
h as anything else. It takes a level of affluence and health and vitality to have a desire to keep growing. There is a fork in the road at mid-life. Some people can’t take the steps to reinvigorate their careers and relationships. But the mindset of the person joining our site is, ‘I’m in pretty good shape, I’ve got a couple decades ahead…I’m going to make the most of things.’ ”
Over half of MySpace users are over 35. Why wouldn’t Boomers just hang out there?
MySpace has way more profiles than members, and a lot of them are fake. Marketers are using it to reach a teen market. Boomers are not going to see it as their site, or a place they are comfortable. We’re really a hybrid. We’ve created a site where people could exchange information about their experiences—it’s not about sharing with people you don’t know. Facebook is connecting with people you already know; TeeBeeDee is about expressing yourself and learning from people you know through the site.
Do you see Boomers shifting their time and attention away from traditional media in order to hang out on social networking sites?
The most telling statistic, when you look at what Boomers are doing online, is that we look just like younger people but are not yet networking in big numbers. So you have to believe one of two things: One, we are never going to network, because our concerns about privacy are such that we won’t do it. Or, second, we just haven’t had the right site yet to make networking worthwhile. That might be TeeBeeDee or some other site. I’m not predicting that all Boomers will network. But it is valuable. But it’s It’s changed my life in many ways, and I think Boomers will find the sites where they can do this.
What is the value Boomers will find in networking?
Networking has value when it has a purpose. Purposeful networking will happen in greater numbers. No one is as motivated as you are to get the answers you need. That is why networking can be purposeful—it’s not just about hanging out—people our age don’t have the time for that.”
And how will that affect traditional media that count Boomers as very important parts of their core audience?
The threat to traditional media is not uniform across segments. For example, there always will be a place for fashion magazines—in print and online. But when it comes to finding out information in a specific need-based way, that will move to sites like ours. As soon as advertisers find ways to reach the audiences they want in new, targeted ways, the old categories are threatened.
How do Boomers differ from younger social networkers in terms of their online behavior?
The comfort level of Boomers is lower than with younger users when it comes to personal revelation. That’s why we let people post with user names, instead of real names. This audience needs to have that option. During our beta test, we saw that people will start out with a user name—and then they change over to their real names after they get comfortable.
What are the business metrics for success at TeeBeeDee?
This is a good time to start a consumer Internet-based business. Membership and engagement are key, and so are frequency of visits and time spent on the site. We are a 19-person company, so we don’t have high overhead. We’ve raised enough capital to develop this business. The initial model is advertising based, but we’re not counting on ads for the first year, because we are growing the community. Our advertising launch will be in November.
“a key component” of the overhaul, confirms Dave Irwin, spokesman for AARP Illinois. “Our members are tech-savvy and they’re looking for ways to network with one another,” he said. Social networking features were previewed for attendees of AARP’s big Life@50 event last month in Boston.
for Boomers, pegged to TeeBeeDee’s launch. Also mentioned: 
venture funding. The company also has a few interesting players on board; Shelby Bonnie, founder of CNET, is a director, and Trish McDermott, a former “vp of romance” at Match.com, will write about “dating makeovers.” (How many companies can say they have a former vp of romance on board?) Here’s what Wolander has to say in the
financing six months ago, but it sounds like the burn rate was too high–and the company sees its future in user-generated content and social networking. That requires far less staff, obviously. Founder Jeff Taylor told Wired that social networking now represents about 65 percent of all activity on the site.
