Paul Kleyman
Editor, Age Beat Online

Up to date news from AP, as well as blogs and staff written pieces on the age boom appear daily on www.redwoodage.com. What's unusual is that this "live alpha" version of the site, not scheduled to be launched until 2008. Think of it as the AL GORE or FRED THOMPSON of boomer-targeted websites, not really running, yet, who are they kidding?  

More to the point, Editor-in-Chief and Chairman TOM MURPHY has an extensive background in journalism. The native New Yorker spent nearly a decade with The Associated Press in California, five of those years as news supervisor in the San Francisco Bureau, and he served four years as the first Bloomberg News correspondent in Northern California. 

Murphy was also the founding Managing Editor of MarketWatch.com and later led a number of editorial efforts, among them a lively RedHerring.com. He's also the author of Web Rules: How the Internet is Changing the Way Consumers Make Choices (Dearborn, 2000). It remains to be seen whether more venture capitalists will be impressed enough to get the redwoodage.com into action before its adds too many more rings around its trunk.  

Redwoodage.com was featured last Friday (Aug. 3) in a 6 o'clock news spot on KGO-TV, San Francisco's ABC affiliate. The RedwoodAge story by business editor DAVID LOUIE, which included a cameo appearance by ABO's editor, reported, "Competition is heating up to serve boomers on the Internet. Each is using different approaches to appeal to an audience in their 40s, 50s and older. Some even offer social networking like online introductions, MySpace for grown-ups. But Redwoodage.com is trying to be different." 

Where have we heard that before? But -- hold onto your trim size, ABO readers -- the KGO piece quotes Redwood age financial office IAN SMITH, "We're not trying to be the next MySpace. We're not trying to be a lifestyle site. We're purely focused on journalism." A journalism-driven website -- what a concept. 

  For now, Murphy told ABO that the current version is "a prototype." He added, "The AP stuff is fresh daily, much of it is fed directly into the site. I manually post select stories on the home page daily, including fresh stuff from [Assistant Editor CECILY O'CONNOR] and me at least a few times a week. I keep the better stories posted for longer periods on the top of the section pages (Money, Living, Politics, etc). In time, those will also change daily and we'll add more features." 

As Louie observed, "The challenge is whether advertisers will support boomer websites, and in the case of Redwoodage.com, whether venture capitalists will want to invest in content sites aimed at the over-40 crowd."

Age Beat Online is published by the Journalists Exchange on Aging with support from the American Society on Aging.  August 9, 2007  Copyright JEoA. Used with permission.