Stuart Taylor recalls how graduate students taking his entrepreneurship and business development course would stump him when they handed in their work on floppy disks.
With decades of experience as a businessman, Taylor, who taught at the University of California at Berkeley in 1987, was the proud owner of an electric typewriter and "scared to death" of computers. But that's no longer true.
Taylor, 68, has seen the blinking cursor, and is now chairman and co-founder of SeniorSurfers.net, a company that trains people 55 and older to use computers and the Internet.
He's hardly alone in his generation.
Users from the ages of 45 and older are coming online in record numbers "to work and play," according to statistics compiled by organizations including Forrester Research, Media Metrix, and the American Association of Retired Persons.
Thirty-eight percent of the population in the United States is 45 years old and older, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The good news for dot-comers hoping to cash in on this market is they are targeting the country's richest. Folks between the ages of 55 and 64 have $600 billion to spend, making them the group with the highest disposable income. They are followed by people between the ages of 65 and 74 that have $430 billion at hand, according to the Census Bureau, which listed the median disposable income for each group at $25,108 and $23,600, respectively.
Though AARP touted a survey that depicted 45-year-olds and older people as "not confident" in conducting online transactions, numerous other groups trumped those findings to show that middle-age and senior citizens are dishing out more cash online than their college-age counterparts.
People between the ages of 45 and 64 are the fastest-growing Internet population and now comprise 20 percent of online users, Media Metrix reported in a survey that included 50,000 users. This group is likely to surf the Web more frequently and stay online longer than their college-age counterparts, the company said.
With computer training, people ages 50 and older are more than willing to give out their credit card numbers online, said Ann Wrixon, president and CEO of SeniorNet, a company with 185 training centers cross the country that has taught 150,000 senior citizens to use the Internet.
SeniorNet recently conducted a survey in which 45 percent of the 1,170 respondents -- the vast majority over 60 years old -- said they had made an online purchase within the last month. They weren't mousy purchases, either. "I think that's one of our old biases about older people, that they are stingy with their money," Wrixon said. Seniors citizens "don't buy just books, they buy big-ticket items like plane tickets, cruises -- some people have even bought cars."
But despite senior users' lush checking accounts, other researchers say the hype surrounding the market is inflated. Though more folks from this age group are going online, they still represent a insignificant slither of the wired segment, said Forrester Research director James McQuivey.
"The real story behind seniors is that by coming online at all, they demonstrate that the Net has achieved mainstream status so that sites like Yahoo or AOL have to include literally everyone," McQuivey said. People 55 years and older "participate in fewer activities online, buy from fewer categories and spend less time online. So the segment can grow all it wants; it still won't have as robust a potential as a fully wired segment."
Still, dot-com entrepreneurs are inundating the 45-and-older market. And more late baby boomers and seniors are rolling up their sleeves to claim a stake in the new economy by launching their own online ideas or moving their brick-and-mortar businesses onto the Internet.
Mary S. Furlong, an expert in the field of technology and aging who provides counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Aging, is founder and chairman of ThirdAge.com, a website aimed at 45- to 59-year-olds.
Furlong, 51, said people from her generation are coming online to find information and chat with others who may be experiencing life crises such as divorce or breast cancer. Boomers also go online to play, date, subscribe to humor lists, and send out greeting cards to loved ones, she said.
ThirdAge offers beauty tips, articles on relationships and dating, email services and shopping. After three years, it touts 1.2 million registered users and $104 million in funding from investors including CBS and Merrill Lynch.
Wrixon said 95 percent of seniors choose to take classes at SeniorNet so they can pursue hobbies like selling crafts online or undertaking generology projects. She said the 3 percent that is employed takes the classes to obtain computer skills for work.
Lorne Bain, a gas and oil industry bigwig who helped grow Sanifill, Inc., from a net worth of $250 million to $1.6 billion after a merger with USA Waste Services, is now the chairman, president and CEO of WorldOil.com. The website, which launched just two months ago, sells oil-field tools and services and provides original content by its trade publications.
Despite the media attention focusing on dot coms run by twentysomethings, Bain, 58, said the new economy is not just for the young.
The 60-hour-plus work week at a dot-com company doesn't bother him, nor is he undone by the 29-year-old director of business development who sits side by side with him on the executive team.
The age of the CEO has no bearing on a company's online success, Bain said. Businesses simply need a good idea and a competent executive team.
"I like the pace," he said. "I see it as an opportunity to add my old economy experience to new economy opportunities."
