For those that don't know me, I'm Jeff Taylor the Founder and CEO of Eons.

After months of feedback from countless members on eons.com we have decided to relax the age limit on how old you are required to be to become a member of Eons. We launched in 2006 with an age "gate," meaning that you had to be 50 to join. As a fun gesture we allowed people 49 to sneak in. The idea was to turn the concept of your 50th birthday on its head meaning that if you were not 50 (49) you were put on the waiting list at Eons and could not join. This was always awkward because we were a boomer site that only let in about 1/2 the actual boomers. The age restriction continues to be one of our top complaints we hear every day. And the waiting list has 1000s of people.

Evolving as "The Online Community for Boom-ers"

By the book, boomers are people born between 1946 and 1964. These dates and the title baby boomers are set to coincide with the 17 million additional babies born during these years (really a baby bubble that began at the close of WWII). But it's more than that. It's the attitude and energy of our generation that defines us -- our collective BOOM!

Eons remains the online community for boom-ers. Boom-ers want more out of life and we believe we have the power to effect change, for ourselves and the world around us. We want to learn and do more to make the most of every life stage.

I'd like to provide some additional background on our decision to relax the age limit.

A Little Eons History

Eons launched July 31, 2006, as a portal with information about the life stage and life changes that centered on the second half of life. We focused on "living to 100 (or die trying)" and "lovin' life on the flip side of 50" and the spirited/inspirational energy that seemed to be overshadowed elsewhere by the doom and gloom of social securities failings and the underfunded health-care system. Eons was created to be the "fun" place to go and get information and be challenged by like minded peers with a zest for life.

The "social" aspects of our site were very limited when we first launched, mostly based on feedback from almost 30 focus groups across the country. We interviewed people in their 50s, 60s and 70s and they told us in unison that "we have no interest in meeting our peers online." But they are interested in content and resources around our health, finances and relationships. We also listened to suggestions about other ideas for the site: writing a book about my life, a place to explore my dreams, search, obits, travel and many of the other features we have showcased on Eons over the last 18 months.

We spent almost a year quietly building eons.com before we launched. Then, in the midst of the excitement of our pre-launch The Wall Street Journal published an article stating that we were going to be "The MySpace for Seniors." That one article was picked up by numerous other news outlets and the rest is kind of history.

Over the 18 months since we launched our members have fallen in love with social networking. Meeting friends across 1000s of groups centered on passion points, travel, health, hobbies, dating ... you name it. What became clear to our team was there was very little interest in traditional articles/content. The tools were fun (Longevity Calculator and Brain Games), our surveys provided a "collective voice," but it was the People area -- our social network -- that became so popular that it completely redefined our company and the website.

Broadening the Friendship Ring

I often refer to Eons as a friendship engine. We get 100s of emails talking about how "Eons has changed my life for the better." This is the real heart of the matter. We were a portal, a collection of resources focused on this life stage -- 50s and 60s. Now we are a social network ... the meeting place for a generation of spirited adults who love life, want to have fun, want to share ideas and expertise. We are a place to keep in touch with friends, make new friends and rekindle old relationships. All of your friends are not the same age and here is the challenge. If you're 54, your close friends may be in their 50s but may just as likely be in their 40s or 60s. As we get older it's not nearly as important to have friends the same age. Our limit of age 49 effectively became obsolete as we moved from being a resource to being a social network. And we've been hearing about it from members daily: "My best friend is 47 and she's not allowed in." I've faced this as well. I'm 47 and it's been difficult to not be allowed into the network we've created. I really haven't been on the site with you as a result. I'm looking forward to sharing my passions and whims and can't wait to engage in spirited discussions with you.

We are keeping our focus on boomers at center stage. We stand to become a more interesting place for adults lovin' life on the flipside as we broaden the friendship ring and become more inclusive of this most-inspiring generation.

The Passion of Eons

Many of you are passionate about and ferociously protect the 50+ aspects of our site. We value your passion and commitment and have provided tools to limit your Profiles and Groups to only be seen by people over 50. I would like to encourage each of your groups to be open-minded about the inclusion of younger boomers. The spirit of life stage and life experience is almost never tied directly to age. Our site is clearly grounded in the passions and interests of our generation. I don't expect that 20- and 30-year-olds will flock from their FaceBooks and MySpaces to jump into our sandbox. I do hope that our site begins to grow and discover new momentum in not only the age change but in all the new features of our site.

Member excitement easily translates over to our team and we are here and want to continue learning from you. We welcome your feedback. Future posts will be shorter -- I promise. We are collectively building an amazing reflection of our generation on Eons.

Thanks for all you do to contribute to the community.
Jeff