Friday, June 27, 2008

iPhone for oldies



You don’t learn much (anything) from the company’s holding page other than it is aimed at ‘older people and their families’ and set to launch on the 4th July.
There is a big Age Concern logo on the page, which I guess indicates that the charity has been involved or endorses the outfit. Let’s hope for Finerday’s sake that they haven’t inherited any of the wizz kids that burnt through the charity’s dosh in the Heyday nightmare.

You can see a brief and not very informative flash video showing a preview of the site. From first looks it gets a thumbs-up from me. Clearly the iconography is based on the Apple iPhone. I applaud anybody who copies successful ideas.

The devil will be in the detail of this site. It looks to be positioning itself as a gateway to enable a tech-averse older person to communicate with their tech-savvy kids and grandchildren. If it delivers on the promise ,I suspect Finderday will be astonished at the age of their users – much lower than they expect. Let’s wait and see what emerges.

I wish the guys at the company the very best of luck – and advise them to stay well clear of anything that has a Heyday sticker. Dick Stroud

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks Dick.
I think your comment about Finerday were very interesting. We designed Finerday to be as easy to use for an older person as it is as cool to use by a grandchild on an i-phone. Shortly after launch it will sit within Facebook so the 15 to 29 year olds will never have to leave. But strangely enough, the trial responses from 30 to 59 year olds about the easy use of technology and sharing photos has been very exciting.
Kindest regards
Howard
CEO, Finerday

Chuck Nyren said...

Finerday looks clean and sharp.

But is it really 'social networking'? Awhile back I was talking to someone about a piece of software he was developing that was pretty much this. He wanted to sell it to retirement communities and nursing homes.

Of course, Finerday is a much better way of doing it, a better business model. But it doesn't seem to me to be social networking - simply a very simple way of sending email, pictures, maybe IM'ing. It's being positioned to be used within a family - and from the post above 'within' Facebook. It will be one of a hundred (or more) features of Facebook.

The draw for these social networks is the opposite of Finerday - getting OUTSIDE the family and strutting your stuff, meeting new people, getting involved with all sorts of virtual activities. (Not that I think it'll last forever - people will get tired of it soon enough - or it'll morph into something completely different.)

Again - Finerday looks to me like web-based software for simple tasks - not a social network.

And you're correct, Mr. Stroud - it probably should be positioned as 'age-neutral' and target the 'tech-averse'.