Boomers are a very unusual group. Most of us know and acknowledge that by virtue of a combination of its size and socio-economic status, this group has had a more profound effect on the culture of this country than any other group in its history. I've recently experienced the effect of this group to my surprise and delight.

Over the past few years, I've developed several web sites whose success has ranged from very popular (such as my Guide to Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor) to absolutely dismal. My criteria for "popular" was, until recently, a few hundred hits each week and a couple of emailings each month. Other than the very commercial, highly-advertised search engines (Yahoo, Altavista, etc.), and a few other very useful tools (such as the Internet Movie Database), most sites simply don't generate that much attention consistently. However, I recently discovered that if you want a better idea of "popular", make the boomers your target audience.

At the beginning of this year, I developed an interactive web-based bulletin board that allows visitors to post messages which are subsequently turned into individual HTML pages, and which accommodates follow-up messages and visible threads, similar to a usenet application. The audience for this board is ex-Bronxites like me, who grew up in that borough of New York City and have an irresistible urge to schmooze about their experiences there and how it's affected their lives. Of course, in order to be old enough to have grown up there and web-savvy enough to be using such a tool, we end up with an audience composed primarily of boomers. And that's where my notion of "popular" has been turned around. In the six weeks since it's been in existence, the board has seen over 600 messages posted. Currently, the site is averaging over 1,000 hits each day, and I've been receiving over a dozen email letters each week!

The board has its group of "regulars", who appear to have found some catharsis in the ability to reach out to the past among a group with common roots, who enjoy the attributes of an electronic soapbox, and who may have finally found a raison d'etre for this whole web thing. But they're not the only folks visiting this site. The 600+ messages represent over 100 different people. There have been messages posted from people living in over 20 states and three countries. In addition to the posted messages, there have been over 900 different "lurkers", people who come and read what's on the board, and silently move on. From what I've been able to discern, it seems that the average age of the visitors to the board is between 35 and 55. By most standards, that's prime boomer turf, with a little extra trim on both ends. I could probably sell mutual funds on this BB with little resistance (just kidding...).

So what does any of this mean? Well, for one thing, contrary to the notion held by some of the larger content developers (like AOL and Prodigy), the web is not primarily populated by kids and post-college, Generation-X browsers. The boomers are out there, in force, and apparently becoming much more knowledgable of the web and its usefulness than they've been thought to be. Is there any significance to the fact that they're on this BB mooning about the past? Well, some might say this is a sign of an empty middle life (probably the same people who equate web-usage in general with an empty life). I'd say that the boomer generation is enjoying this board because they're an insightful, sensitive, convivial group of people. I'm certainly proud to be one of them, and extremely happy to have found all these ex-Bronxites!

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