This has been a brutal month or so for tech layoffs. According to our Layoff Tracker, there have been 19,683 job eliminations at tech companies announced since mid-September, and we’re not even counting the 24,600 people at Hewlett-Packard who are being eliminated as a result of its merger with EDS.
But only five big companies make up more than 90 percent of the layoffs: Xerox (3,000), Dell (8,900), Yahoo (1,500), eBay (1,500), and German chipmaker Qimonda (3,000). The other 33 companies are mostly startups, and collectively account for 1,683 layoffs. Although three more companies (Sony Ericsson, Nvidia, and TicketMaster) account for an additional 1,110 job losses.
After stripping those out, you get closer to a pure number of layoffs at tech startups: 573 → Read More
When Jeff Taylor launched old-people social network Eons in August 2006, he couldn’t use the site. That’s because the minimum age was 50, and he was just 45. That was the first warning sign that this thing was headed to the deadpool. Our initial review of the site was a thumbs down. Not only is it ridiculous that the founder and visionary for the service couldn’t actually use it, we found it to be poorly organized. It included depressing features like an obituary section (that must be fun to read every day when you log in). In short, we said it embraced all of the hype of social networking, but none of the spirit. It took about a year for the company to start laying off staff. No surprise there – Comscore has measured the slow decline of the company from mediocrity to downright desolation. They went from a high of 1.2 million worldwide visitors in May 2007 to just 400,000 last month. Incredibly, they’ve raised $32 million in capital from first tier VCs to get those 400k visitors. Minimum Age To Join Eons Is Now 50 13 From today on, however, Taylor can start to use his site. They’ve lowered the minimum age requirement from 50 to…13. They’re still focusing on the older generation in their content, you just don’t have to actually be old to join. The key is your state of mind. Taylor says “It’s the attitude and energy of our generation that defines us — our collective BOOM!” The change is reminiscent of Facebook’s move to allow non-students to join the network in late 2006. Except that it isn’t going to work. Facebook dominated the student market, and people were clamoring to get in and hang out with those young trendsetters. Eons doesn’t dominate its core market, and that core market certainly doesn’t include any trendsetters. Eons as a business plan probably looked great on paper. Lots and lots of baby boomers are nearing retirement age. They’re online and they have a lot of free time, but they don’t want to hang out at MySpace and Facebook. So Eons builds them a social network they can call their own. Investors threw money at it. The problem is that these people have better things to do than make countless numbers of anonymous online friends, and then poke them and flirt with them. And if they are going → Read More
The take up of social networking services among over 50′s would appear to be not booming at nearly the same level as the birthrate of the United States in the 50′s and 60′s, with news that Eons has shed 24 staff members. Another twelve employees have left “voluntarily,” bringing the total headcount reduction to around 50%. According to a report on Xconomy, Eons founder Jeff Taylor, who is too young to use his own site, “called together his remaining staff and engaged in a moment of remembrance for the 24 colleagues he had just laid off…in a dramatic, sobering, but ultimately healthy and air-clearing scene.” Eons launched in August 2006 with a over 50′s focused social network that included an obituary feature which Michael Arrington reported as seeming “both gimmicky and somewhat distasteful.” The Obituary section includes notable deaths and additional features like deaths near your location “all tastefully wrapped in funeral home, medicare and netflix (?) advertising.” The sector is far more crowded than when Eons launched, with sites such as BOOMj and others attempting to deliver are more friendly version of MySpace and Facebook to seniors. Sequoia Capital and General Catalyst, who have invested $32 million in Eons over two rounds, are said to have demanded the restructure. Update: Here’s a look back on their original ad campaign: Thanks Mike Blair → Read More
Building specialized websites and services for the older crowd has been popular lately. First we had Eons, the social network for people over 50. Founder Jeff Taylor is too young, at 45, to use his own site. Perhaps being out of touch with his target demographic has been what’s led Eons to mediocrity (Alexa, Compete) since launch. Next we had Presto, a combination printer (made by HP) and web service that basically faxes emails to loved ones who don’t have computers. Older people are featured prominently in its marketing materials. Today the parent company of Eons has announced cRANKy, a search engine for people over 50 that compliments their Eons social network. The site indexes about 5,000 sites that Compete.com says are popular with people over 45, and focuses on less results because “the Eons Generation doesn’t like to wade through millions of search results.” I frankly don’t think any of these products will be successful. Not because the demographic they’re targeting isn’t large, but rather because these people are quite Internet savvy already and don’t need hand-holding and condescension. In the case of cRANKy, if less results is appealing to older people, the same would be the case for everyone. People like relevant results and lots of them. And if your search engine isn’t very deep, it’s a flaw, not a feature. → Read More
Monster.com founder Jeff Taylor has a new startup launching today called Eons. But don’t bother signing up unless you are at least 50 years old – this is a social network for the older crowd. Jeff himself is only 45 years old – too young to use his own service. The idea is good – this is a huge audience with time on their hands for socializing – but the execution is bad. In many ways, Eons is embracing the hype of the new web (social networking blogs, whathaveyou) without embracing the spirit. In short, Eons is trying to do way too much and I’m at a loss as to what it actually wants to be. They are also touting an obituary feature, which seems both gimmicky and somewhat distasteful. The section includes notable deaths and additional features like deaths near your location, all tastefully wrapped in funeral home, medicare and netflix (?) advertising. But gimmicks aside, as I said above my main issue with the site is that they are trying to be a blog, a myspace-type home page, a to-do list and a portal for its users, among many other things. It’s too much to throw at people at once, and this age group is perfectly capable of using Yahoo for a portal, Vox for a blogging platform, etc. I would have started out with just the Myspace angle and added functionality from there as users grew, a model that has worked well for many other startups. Do one thing better than everyone else. Successful entrepreneurs often have trouble on new startups – Eons looks to be going down that road. More on CNN Money. → Read More
