Lina Ko February 2nd, 2010
Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of baby boomers reading their e-books on trains and airplanes. Once again, contrary to popular belief, boomers do embrace technology. I recently purchased the Kindle 2 from Amazon and am loving every minute of it. No more papers piled at home or at your doorstep, but I can still skim through headlines in major newspapers before I go to work. The Kindle also offers free newspaper subscriptions for two weeks, and this successfully hooks me up to paying a monthly subscription of The New York Times. I’ve also cancelled my home subscription of The Globe and Mail because I now have the daily version wirelessly delivered to me on my device at half the price of the print version.
For people who love the smell and touch of printed volumes of books, an e-book might not be to their liking. But I think this is one of the most innovative devices for consumers – no more book shelves and no more yearning for library space at home. I can now create my own electronic library capable of storing up to 1,500 books – the Complete Works of Shakespeare, the Bronte collection, the Holy Bible, The Complete Charles Dickens Collection, the Works of Oscar Wilde and other literary greats – and carry it around with me to anywhere in the world when I travel because of the Kindle’s 3G wireless capability. I can wirelessly shop for new books, download them in less than 60 seconds, and read them in more than 100 countries.
Boomers are likely to be attracted to the six types of text sizes to choose from – no more squinting your eyes to read small type fonts in most printed books. The six-inch electronic ink display reads like printed words on paper because the screen works using real ink and doesn’t use backlight, eliminating the eyestrain and glare associated with other electronic displays. And at times if you’re tired of making your eyes work, you can always get Kindle to read to you out loud with its Text-to-Speech feature.
When Apple’s iPad becomes available in March, Kindle might face some stiff competition since the former can offer an all-in-one mobile device including an iBook Store in colour. But for people like me who only want an e-book, a slim and trim, 10-oz Kindle is good enough. If Amazon can continue to keep the e-book prices lower than the print versions; when more quality magazines such as The Economist become available on Kindle; when new books can be accessible to us e-readers even faster, I’m sure more and more boomers will replace printed volumes with the sleek reading device.
Lina Ko December 1st, 2009
I read with interest in The Toronto Star earlier this week that Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin is touching down in Toronto this week to talk about how NASA-style technology will help the elderly live better, stay in their homes longer and keep their brains sharp.
On Wednesday, Aldrin will speak about the bold new future of aging to about 200 international researchers, experts on geriatrics and people who work with the elderly. It will be the final session of a two-day summit, The Business of Aging, jointly organized by Toronto’s innovation incubator, the MaRS Centre, and the Ontario government.
According to the chief executive of MaRS, the organization plans to showcase the work of 14 up-and-coming Ontario companies now developing software, diagnostic tools and other technologies aimed specifically at the aging population. With the first wave of Canada’s 10 million baby boomers about to become seniors, there’s growing recognition that keeping them at home as long as possible is going to be key, despite what’s widely to be a shortage of caregivers.
A speaker at the summit, Laurie Orlov, says the ability of boomers to age gracefully, will depend on four things:
- Advances in ‘communication and engagement’ technology that allows seniors to keep in regular touch with friends, relatives and caregivers
- A new generation of home safety and security devices, from electronic sensors to personal emergency response systems you wear around your neck
- Health and wellness innovations such as new generations of fitness and ‘brain games’ programs and devices that will help the elderly manage and monitor chronic diseases from home
- Interventions to ensure dignity for the elderly so that they have social interaction, access to affordable and adequate transportation and are able to continue to learn and contribute to society.
I think this summit’s focus is definitely on the right track. It may sound very morbid, but instead of just accepting the impact of an aging population as it does on other societies such as those in Germany and Japan, our provincial government is facing this inevitable phenomenon head-on by strategically planning for its advent.
Lina Ko March 9th, 2009
According to a recent survey by Yahoo! Canada, Canada’s baby boomers are increasingly finding that the Internet is where they find ‘emotional’ connections. As mentioned before on this blog, almost half of boomers are on social networking sites (50 percent of women and 45 pecent of men) and close to one-third (31 percent) say their first photographic glimpse of a new grandchild or family member came via their computer screens. Sixty-four percent of boomers say they e-mail friends and family more often than they call them on the phone., while nearly 72 percent say they are more connected to their loved ones because of the Internet.
The survey also showed 55 percent of boomers feel the world would be ‘passing them by’ if they weren’t online, and more than one-third of unmarried people in that age group use the Internet to search for personal ads and online romance.
The Edmonton Journal also pointed out that the financial crisis has spurred more boomers to look for minute-by-minute news online though they are still more ‘mixed’ in their consumption of online and traditional media than their younger counterparts. Kids bring their parents and grandparents to this technology, and now boomers and seniors are very much part of the online community.
Lina Ko March 3rd, 2009
I’ve mentioned on this blog before that contrary to popular belief, baby boomers do participate in Internet activities and they are more tech-savvy than perceived. According to a recent report by Forrester Research, social media are hitting the radar for the majority of boomers who surf the net, from blogs to social networks and online videos. The report indicated that:
- Two-thirds of trailing-edge baby boomers (aged 43 to 52) and 62 percent of older boomers (53 to 63) consumer social media including reading blogs, listening to podcasts, watching user-generating videos, reading forums or reading customer ratings
- This is up from 2007, when 47 percent of younger boomers and 39 percent of older ones made use of social media
- Boomers are likely to be critics rather than content creators, with the proportion of online boomers reacting to content more than doubling to 34 percent in 2008, up from 15 percent in 2007
- Almost 25 percent of younger boomers are active in social communities, up from 15 percent in 2007
Once again, this speaks to segmented marketing for marketers who are interested in reaching this demographic via social media. While you wouldn’t target boomers the same way you do with college students in social marketing, it makes sense to spend part of your boomer-focused budget in social environments that will become more active and productive over time.
Lina Ko November 3rd, 2008
I’m surprised to read that of 37 global markets surveyed recently, Canada ranked No. 1 in adoption of online banking, with 67.1 percent of Canadian Internet users banking online in April 2008. According to The Toronto Star quoting comScore, Inc., other English-speaking countries has significantly lower penetration, including the U.K. (49.5 percent), U.S. (44.4 percent), and Australia (41.7 percent).
Canadians lead the world in online banking, with an average of eight usage days and 10.5 online banking visits per visitor. We spent an average on banking sites viewing approximately 121 pages per visitor. Of the nearly 24 million Canadian Internet users, 15.5 million visited a banking site this year. RBC Financial Group led the category with 4.6 million visitors, followed by TD Bank Financial Group with 4.5 million visitors and Bank of Montreal sites with 3 million visitors.
What’s most interesting to me is that while the percent of consumers using online banking services is generally higher among younger age segments, the frequency of usage is slightly higher among older-age segments.
As an age group that often confronts financial challenges, including retirement planning and paying for their kids’ university education, 45- to 54-year-old boomers represent a particularly important age segment for online banking. The segment shows both high penetration (73 percent) and the heaviest frequency in usage (12 visits and 157 pages per visitor per month). Who says boomers are not Internet- and computer-savvy?
Research has shown over and over again that Canadians trail behind the Americans in online shopping even though we are more Internet-savvy. I can only draw the conclusion that we must be trusting our financial institutions more than we trust online retailers in preventing Internet fraud and protecting our financial security!
Lina Ko August 25th, 2008
According to Canadian Press, General Motors researchers are working on developing a windshield that combines lasers, infrared sensors and a camera to take what’s happening on the road and enhance it, so ageing drivers with vision problems are able to see a little more clearly. The 65-year-old population in North America will nearly double in about 20 years, meaning more people will be struggling to see the road like they used to. GM’s new windshield won’t improve their vision, but it will make objects stand out that could otherwise go unnoticed by an aged eye.
The windshield is designed specifically for older drivers, who have vision problems at a much higher rate than other age groups. Currently, 12.4 percent of the population in the U.S. is 65 or older, but by 2030, that percentage is projected to jump to 20 percent. Canada is pretty much in the same boat. Chrysler said the company is also working on such windshield technologies, but Ford didn’t have any similar plans.
Some cars already feature head-down displays, small screens in the dashboard that show an enhanced view of what is in front of the car. Head-up displays, so called because a driver doesn’t have to look down to see the information, are also available.
I believe that the boomer population has grown up with technology and is comfortable with technology. There is a willingness to adopt technology to make life easier. It seems like a logical extension of the boomer lifestyle to include technology that makes them safer on the road. Older adults are like adults of all ages – they want to drive and take control!
Lina Ko October 22nd, 2007
Contrary to popular belief, a growing number of social-networking websites are being developed for people over the age of 50. According to an Internet monitoring company, 14 per cent of adult Internet users are older than 55. It also predicts seniors in Britain will overtake 35 to 44-year-olds as the age group with the largest representation online. There’s a boom in networking sites targeting older people interested in keeping in touch with friends and chatting about subjects such as diet and health care.
According to the executives at GrowingBolder.com, on average, people over 50 spend more time online than any other demographic group, but so far have been ignored by online entrepreneurs. North America is such a youth worshipping culture and Hollywood is partly to blame for that. It’s enlightening to see that there’s a dramatic, revolutionary change under way right now. It’s no longer people fighting ageing – they are embracing ageing. Unilever’s ProAge Campaign for Dove certainly reflects this trend.
Online marketing trade publisher, iMedia Connection, says more than 43 million people aged 50 or older used the Internet in 2005 – up 21 per cent from the previous year. These users generally have more money to spend and show more loyalty to certain web sites. Marketers are now spending more and more online as Baby Boomers now have a relevant voice on ‘greying Internet’ sites such as GrowingBolder, Boomertown, Multiply and Rezoom.
Lina Ko February 5th, 2007
Well it had to happen eventually, the world’s first age-relevant search engine and it’s NOT for teenagers – it’s for boomers. Now don’t jump to assumptions – the text isn’t THIS BIG, and it doesn’t explain how to use the internet – instead it processes every request from the perspective of someone who is at least 50 years old. The concept behind cranky.com is that boomers feel overwhelmed using search engines like Google or Yahoo because they deliver too many results. Moreover, the team at Eons, the company behind the site and other online tools for boomers searched over 500,000 websites most visited by this demographic, and reviewed the top 5,000.
Users are encouraged to rate and review websites they find via cranky.com, and the site lists the top 10 subjects searched by boomers on a daily basis. As an advertiser or marketer, this search engine provides limitless research, advertising, and marketing opportunities. Start thinking about how your company can be only a click away from reaching its boomer potential.