Seniors

August was a bonanza of buzz, buzz, buzz.  Usually August is a snoozer (and a slow news month) in the business world, what with vacations and organizational regrouping. But beginning with the August 3 Intel-GE Joint Venture announcement that fueled hope and speculation about accelerating intentions, more activity and media tracked right behind. During August, Great Call announced a new Jitterbug medication reminder service, Healthsense received a round of investment led by Radius Ventures, a $1.3 billion M-Health market sizing got Qualcomm and AT&T excited. Or maybe that that was 'mHealth' -- Best Buy (re)surfaced with health-related stuff in stores. Within the general what's-it-all-mean confusion, more press followed last month's NY Times series -- this time NPR offered up a series on aging and technology as well. Never one to shut up, I offered my own 'bah humbug' assessment of the assessment.

So baby boomers and seniors AREN'T buying the iPad right now.   You probably thought this post was about centenarians. which it is, but first, to clear up a bit of confusion, even though the iPad might be a zero-learning-curve tool for seniors, even though the iPad is winning over an unspecified number of elderly in Japan, let's be clear on the iPad buyer in the US. According to Nielsen Wire, only 15% of the iPad buyers are over the age of 56. So let's not get too excited about it right now as an aging-in-THIS place technology. I plan to stop writing about it for at least a few weeks.