Moses Znaimer targets babyboomers with new social media site

Moses Znaimer is at it again. The broadcasting pioneer behind Citytv, MuchMusic and Bravo is aiming his crosshairs at a new, yet older, audience - baby boomers. And he's going after them from every angle.The broadcasting visionary and president of Zoomermedia Ltd. recently launched a social networking site, www.zoomers.ca, geared at those aged over 45. The site resembles the popular Facebook site, with members uploading videos and photos and posting blogs and notes, but with some notable differences. On December 18, the site will broadcast its first live program, an interactive talk show featuring clinical psychologist Dr. Dhalia Keen. Audience members will submit questions via webcam chat and telephone and have their issues addressed in front of a live studio audience."My plan is to build a bigger social network and become a content provider," explains Mclean Greaves, the mastermind behind such interactive projects as CBC's critically acclaimed ZeD series and hip-hop social networking site www.rapspace.net, who works closely with Znaimer. "Then we can go to bigger places and say we have a show that meets your audience's target - it's popular, let's do a revenue share."It's all part of a bigger plan, or as is often the case with Znaimer, a vision. While many content developers and advertisers continue to target the 18-34 demographic, Znaimer is after the other end of the spectrum, focusing almost exclusively at those over 45.Already Zoomermedia is quickly becoming a zoomer empire; with recently acquired radio holdings, plans to launch a Classical music digital television channel, Zoomer magazine and websites such as www.50plus.com - all of which feed into and off of each other."For some reason the public and advertisers have no idea that this generation is very tech savvy," explains Greaves. "The big difference is these people have money to spend."Zoomers.ca, with nearly 5,000 members, doesn't just rely on advertising revenue, but also a new storefront featuring branded clothing. "Once we put it up, (members) started buying things right away," Greaves says. "There are about 14 million (baby boomers) in Canada and they control most of the wealth. They are under-marketed to. They are much cooler and hipper than the public think."While baby boomers may be starting to embrace social networking, they are lagging behind younger generations. According to a May 2008 study by JWT Boom, less than 25% of US Internet users over 40 years old use social networking sites, compared to 75% of those aged 15-24. But there is promise - 25% of those over 40 believe they may logon in the future.The key to getting users online, according to JWT, is cross marketing. Their figures suggest that 92% of active online boomers will visit a site after reading about it in a print article and 83% will visit a site after seeing it in a television ad. Zoomermedia's integrated marketing approach - where visitors to any of their online properties are encouraged to visit others - has the potential to bode well."This generation is much more tech-savvy than people realize," starts Greaves. "There are several very active zoomers.ca users that remind me of myspace.com users. They're uploading videos and there are some users that are very active web developers." Greaves is catering the site to these early adopters and ironically, using his rapspace site as a testing ground for zoomers.Earlier this month rapspace debuted a live web cast in broadcast quality. "I've figured out a way to do live in-bound calls and live webcam interaction from viewers, from the studio and all off my Mac Book," explains Greaves. "What we're trying to do is create a channel with original programming and a lot of webcasting. We've created a model where we can produce TV that's far less expensive than the traditional model, but far more tailored to the audience. We're bringing this to zoomers."I've been doing this for a long time and finally the technological pieces are coming together," adds Greaves. "IPTV is there, broadcasting and webcasting are there, social networking is there. I'm no longer so ahead of the technology curve waiting for people to catch up."

Moses Znaimer targets babyboomers with new social media site

News | 12/18/2008 8:11 pm EST

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