There's a lot of stereotyping of people over 65 going on in marketing circles. The assumption is often that those born pre-war are technophobes, don't get it, and aren't online.
This is wrong, and new stats from Pew Internet prove it. Read a nice summary here, from MediaPost.
Remember all that blather about the big intergenerational wealth transfer? How all the boomers parents were going to leave all their money behind? Well they are actually much more engaged with living and with living well than those forecasters predicted. They're still around and many have disposable income. And they are online. Okay, most of it is e-mail. But it is still growing, the change hasn't stopped.
Another stereotype I hear a lot is that GenY (Millenials) are dominating the online world. In fact, it turns out that GenX is much more likely to transact online. Perhaps because they have a lot more transacting to do at their stage of life, and no time to go shopping.
Resources:
Generations online in 2009, study conducted by Pew Internet and American Life Project.
