From the Reporters
Hannah Clark Steiman

The demise of Eons

 

At least once a day, I get a press release about a new social networking site -- inevitably, it's billed as "MySpace for chicken farmers," or "Facebook for people who eat breakfast." A few months ago, we ran a story in our Elevator Pitch section about a website aiming to be MySpace for baby boomers, 55 Alive! The investors we interviewed were skeptical, and one pointed out that a competing MySpace for Old People, called Eons, was very well financed, implying that it could be formidable competition.

Well, it looks like that's no longer the case. According to a story in Tech Crunch, Eons now has about 400,000 visitors a month, down from 1.2 million a year ago. And while it previously required its users to be 50 years old, it has lowered the minimum age to 13. As Tech Crunch's Michael Arrington said, "Now you just have to FEEL old to join." This despite the fact that Eons' founder, Jeff Taylor, raised $32 million from investors.