Blogs and Books

Must admit they havent floated my boat yet (blogs) and the other seems to be nonsense but then again I dont like facebook etc.

First of all, I don't quite see how to parse, "I'm trying to figure out where the marketing for "zoomers" needs to go these days."

Do you mean "How and what can I offer for sale online so as to profit from other old people?

Or are you just trying to sound up-to-date, savvy and hip?

I personally don't subscribe to any blogs, twitter on twitter, or indulge in fatuities like facebook or myspace.

I dohowever read some good books online that are free because beyond copyright, and also buy some online books still under copyright that are $10 or less including delivery - such as "Selected Short Stories of Alice Munro" (hardcover) bought for $1 + $8 for delivery, or two great hardcover biographies by Michael Holroyd at about the same price.

Admittedly, these are not books for the up-to-date, savvy or hip dotard, but all of them took very talented people a lot of time and thought to write, unlike the other genres to which you refer.

But, come to think of it, these books, though older, ARE kind of up-to-date, savvy and hip, given their low cost /quality ratio and the need in these times to conserve cash.

I think I'll go and order another.

I only subscribe to one friend's blog (because she's moved to Solomons and I have a vested interested in that). I sometimes read other blogs but only if I'm given a link and it sounds interesting.

As for Facebook, I did join under pressure from friends but I never use it. IMO it's a waste of time and there's no privacy. When I want to get in touch with anyone I'll use e-mail.

My reason for asking about this is because in my professional life I have occasion to evaluate the pitches ad companies make for social marketing campaigns. Every year the pitches seem to lean more heavily on social networking strategies like facebook/myspace, blogs and most recently, twitter.

I've tended to avoid that stuff myself, figuring I already have enough distractions when I sit down at my computer to work but a few weeks back I decided I'd better go have a look. So I signed up for accounts on all of above, became a "friend" and "follower" and a "subscriber" to the "feeds."

I even put together a test campaign where I looked at how much it would cost to advertise through some of these mediums. I decided to look at whether a campaign directed at 55s would be likely to experience much success using the social networking mediums. The companies all make great claims about the numbers of 55s and can segment your market into the kinds of info that is provided in the profiling info people provide. It's all very slick.

But I was wondering whether +55s actually USE these sites - or did they just sign up because kids or grandkids wanted them to and now they never use them. And you know, you cannot seem to "unsubscribe" from some of them. At least when I tried to take down a google group that I started to test the process I discovered that I could pass "moderator status" to someone else but I could not actually take it down.

So you, my friends, are my little focus group. If people here are signed up for some of these (because of above-named reasons or similar) but you never actually use the sites then that answers my question and all the marketing hype in the world about the millions of +55 facebookers is useless. Kind of like the free newspapers/magazines that take a direct path from the porch to the recycle box.

i have a couple of blogs...one is my travel blog, which I started when I was laid up and bored and housebound with the injured leg. And because I cannot figure out how to do a webpage, another blog for potential 'house portrait' clients to view. It took me ages to figure out how to use the damn things. I am also on facebook, and it has proven useful to find and get in touch with some relatives and old friends...mainly, however, through their children, who ARE on face book. I rarely go there.... I am on Flickr, because i truly enjoy viewing a Illustrated journals (it's something I am now teaching) and I do participate to some extent. As far as being a 'market audience'... forget it. I use them when I need to, and ignore the ads....

Not a blog, but you might want to dip into Any Port in a Storm.

I have a few photo blogs and subscribe to many others (all photo blogs) and subscribe to a few other blogs that interest me (such as canayjun's) but I've never been on the social networking sites and have no interest in doing so.

We started a travel website to keep our family up to date with what's going on in our lives. It seems to have grown lately and has become a quite good hoby whilst we travel the globe...well Asia for the time being.

Pleeasee make the small effort to not use that hideous, awful, stinking non-word "Zoomer." It is truly replusive and is as much a part of the stupidification of the population of No. America as "twitter." Everything has to be baby talk (Googling, Yahoo, etc etc etc) as we all have to accomodate and compensate for ever-stupider people. Yes, if you can capture the quasi-literate, half-smart, over 55's without a life or with nothing much more than a constant, funny buzzing sound in their heads, they might pay attention to these kiddy sites. I have never met a mature, intelligent, actually educated human who would tho.