Final Reviews of Top Ten Boomer Web Sites

Tonight I'll cover the last three of PC Magazine's top ten boomer web sites. I probably shouldn't have let myself cherry pick the list earlier in the week, because tonight I was left with the sites that interested me the least. But I slogged through, so that you, dear reader, won't have to.

Well, that's not exactly true, because the jury is still out on several of these sites. It's hard to tell in a quick visit, but one, and maybe two, of tonight's sites piqued my interest.

Let me start with an easy one. Easy for me anyway, because BoomerGirl is obviously a site for women. I looked around for a while, but in all honesty, I am incapable of evaluating it. There's lots of stuff there. I'll show it to the Platinum wife when she gets home from her current business trip, but she's not much for web sites and blogs (except of course for mine :-) So ladies, go for it. And let me know if you think it's worth recommending and why. One of you can be my first guest blogger.

The second site was more interesting. "Retirement Living TV" really is a website for a cable/satellite TV channel. I should have realized by the url, rl.tv. I believe that's the first time I've been to a site in the .tv domain... but I digress. There is a lot of interesting material on the site, but rl.tv necessarily has to cater to those who are already retires, so sometimes I got the feeling that I often get when I visit the AARP website. I feel like some young whippersnapper who is trying to relate to Mom and Dad's stuff. There just aren't enough retired boomers in the population yet, compared to the 70, 80, and 90-somethings. So sites like rl.tv are in transition. Yes, there's plenty of good stuff, but you may have to turn a blind eye to some "seniors" ads and articles.

Finally, we complete our top ten boomer web site reviews with BOOMj, which turned out to be a lot like BoomerTowne, which I reviewed earlier this week. Very similar, in fact, right down to the BOOMj points given for signing up, visiting amd participating there. However, at BOOMj, their points seem sto only be usable as discounts at the BOOMj Store, whereas at BoomerTowne, the points translate into discounts at stores like BestBuy or into generally usable VISA Gift Cards. After a quick visit to the BOOMj store, I think you may NEED some discounts to equal, say, an Amazon.com or EBay price. But as I say, they're easy to earn. This must be the (marketing department) approved way to get a social networking site going.

BOOMj has a more* modern looking interface, but I haven't dug much below the surface at this point. So I invite you to dig in there with me, and send me your comments. Or befriend me there. My user name there is bobmcd67, same as at BoomerTowne.

I will update you from time to time if I come to any conclusions. And this weekend, I plan to update the "Platinum Links" section at www.platinumyears.net, and here as well. - Bob

* P.S. As I was just about to "publish" this article, I went to BoomerTowne to confirm what I said about their gift cards, and lo and behold, they have updated their interface. So scratch the word "more" from the above. Both interfaces look great.

Comments

Unknown said…
Boomertowne is a great site. Check out Boomertowne Guide for some great resources to earn more points.
May 2, 2008 at 11:32 AM
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