Boomers Still Surf With the Best!

Posted by Phil Butler on March 22nd, 2007

Web 2.0 is for Boomers too! Statistically speaking Boomer use of new media and entertainment is very close to Generation X's on the Internet, cellular and PDA use, gaming and technology spending trends like purchases of HDTV's. Boomers also seem to be more willing to spend money on technology than any of the other age groups if they feel it will enhance their quality of life.

The upcoming 6^th annual Beyond the Numbers: Boomer market Summit on March 26 and 27^th in Las Vegas will feature experts in new media and entertainment discussing services that fulfill the Boomer goal of living life to the fullest. This huge market represents challenges and windfalls for today's marketing professionals.

The title of this year's summit will be Boomers 2.0 - Reaching 40+ Consumers today. The focus will be the impact of the digital age on the Boomer lifestyle. It is not appealing to me to be the focus of figuring out how to sell me more stuff, but at least we Boomers are not forgotten yet. I am even hoping that since we are such good spenders, some of these billionaires we have made will come up with great ways to keep us alive!

In a press release from BusinessWire, Brad Knight - President of Retirement Living made the following statement:

"The growth of the mature population is unprecedented, without parallel in human history. In fact, two-thirds of those that have ever lived to age 65 are alive today. Through Retirement Living, we will inform, inspire and involve our viewers in order to improve America's images, attitudes, and perceptions of aging. It's the only minority of which we all will be members."

See there, don't mess with Moms and Dads, there are a bunch of us! I just hope when Generation X is all in charge and all that they don't try to monitor my Internet usage and such! The retirement community I end up at had better have some X-box 720 virtual reality stuff and interactive movie experiences to boot. If I want to go to the newest version of Second Life, it had better be fun too. I mean really fun, Beach Blanket Bingo, virtual surfing, hot cars to drive and a host of innovations are all that will keep me from calling the kids and screaming for more. I only hope that Web 4.0 (or whatever it is by that time) will have good online shops for spare parts. Even blogosphere fools like me need to get out once in a while, back in the day many of us old codgers surfed an even more challenging platform, let's not forget.  

Photo Credit: Photo courtesy Wikipedia, "Riding Giants", Greg Noll, other legendary surfers and Sony Classics. Riding Giants is the definitive work on modern surfing and its impact on our culture. This use of this illustration is intended to illustrate how "Boomers" often surfed on a much more dynamic platform. People like Greg Noll pushed technology and contributed to free innovation that helped lead to platforms like Web 2.0.

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