Missed Opportunities

I came across an article on Tomshardware this morning regarding Jeff Taylor, the founder of Monster.com, who is now starting a social networking site/portal for seniors.

… <that’s me sitting here contemplating>

Yeah, sounds familiar to me alright.  Back in the summer of 2000, I was working with a Mister Ezra Hedaya at a small startup called iCanServices.  The idea was to tap into a largely ignored marketspace: the “mature adult” (age 55+) internet user and offer them a way to stay in touch with their families, with each other, and offer a variety of services specifically tailored to these users.

It’s one of those situations where the idea was ahead of its time.  One of the biggest issues was that most of the elderly were very wary of computers and certainly, the high prices of components those days didn’t help much at all.  It was a big stumbling block to try to introduce a web application when most of the users didn’t have access to the web. 

Fast forward to today, seven years later.  Technology has slowly melded into the society even more so since 2000 and a new generation of these mature adults are starting to retire from a business world that has embraced computers and the Internet as a daily instrument.  Computers and internet connections while certainly commonplace in 2000, were nowhere near as ubiquitous as they are today and nowhere near as affordable.  With the introduction of UMPCs (Ultra Mobile Personal Computers) and the slew of really cheap desktops nowadays, Captain’s dream might have taken off and perhaps I’d be a wealthy IPO millionaire today 😀 (yeah, in my wildest dreams).

Chalk this one up as another missed opportunity :-S