The city of money of style - Toronto Star surf

Cathy Young, who uses Facebook, Twitter, Skype and other forms of social networking, said that for two years she did not buy anything online.Carlos Osorio/The Toronto Star

As 60 years who has taken a "little hard knocks," Cathy Young approached social media and trade online with extreme caution.

But once convinced progress in encryption and verification had made the web a safer place to do business and pursue social links, she jumped in with both feet.

"Two years did not purchase anything," said the resident of Toronto, a singer and actress who won a Juno for most promising female vocalist in the beginning of the 1970s. "But they have done much more secure servers and browsers, and it is so convenient."

After talk of measures to protect themselves, to establish a separate web identity and set up a p.o. box for deliveries of products, Young is now a regular visitor to auction online, Facebook and the MayoClinic.com, among other regional settings of the web.

And it is far from alone.

The 75-year-old makes the font bigger on his iPad, so it can read the text on the device of baby boomers who have become their own online travel agents, the so-called silver surfers are especially oriented USA respectively on the web in record numbers.

"They were later adapters," said McLean Greaves, Vice President of interactive media at base of Toronto ZoomerMedia Ltd. "but when they feel that the bugs have been established, they are around it."

He noted the data which show the boomers represent the demographic growth in the use of social media, text messaging and expenditure on equipment, including computers tablet, smartphones and e-readers.

It is a shift that represents a "tremendous opportunity" for Facebook online marketing experts and social media more boomers-centric and less crowded sites seeking to leverage their community of users in a stable source of income.

The question is whether relatively circumspect baby boomers will be more resistant than their younger counterparts to advertising on social networks and share their personal information and surfing stories with marketing specialists.

Greaves said the age group 60 70-plus is "highly suspicious" of online marketing, especially if it is formulated, a position as a "friend" in a group on Facebook.

"They don't want be unwanted messages and that they do not want be manipulated.".

Added Greaves boomers to marry an e-commerce, with fewer reservations if they had control over the use of their personal data.

Still, according to Young, Facebook banner ads can be useful if the products or services meet its specific needs, adding that she saw the marketing of social media as the inevitability.

Mary Furlong, whose companies advice firm in reaching senior markets, said boomers breathe a new life in the web business.

"This is the first cohort of elderly Internet savvy and they seek not to retire," she said.

Born between 1946 and 1964, and associated with the redefinition of traditional values, a boomer turns 60 the United States every 11 seconds, Furlong added.

"This is a generation that has a level of mental acuity that has not been seen before."

Individuals aged 65 and more are still less than 20 per cent of the active Internet universe, but their number is increasing rapidly. The number of elderly people online at the United States increased by more than 55%, 11.3 million of active users in November 2004 to 17.5 million in November 2009.

Among people over 65 years, the growth of women online in the period exceeded the growth of men by six percentage points.

The age group 70-75, according to Pew Internet and American Life Project was the largest increase of the use of the Internet since 2005. The survey found that 45 per cent of this age group is now online, compared with 26 per cent in 2005.

Search for health information are the third most popular online activity with the highest age group, after email and online research.

In addition, many seniors find exciting social networking and enjoy connecting with family and friends in the virtual world. They are the creation of their own blogs and, more often, to connect with their family and friends by joining Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

"Social media are giving the elderly a voice, and for a generation who felt isolated and sometimes overlooked, is no small feat, said Sarah Hoit, CEO of my Village of way".which designs social networks online for seniors.

And research published last week shows that Canadians continue to devote much more time online than people in other countries, with a growing number of older users, the growth of propulsion.

The numbers for 2010 published by comScore, the use of Internet monitoring company, has concluded that Canadians spent an average 43.5 hours online in the fourth quarter of 2010, almost double the average of the hours 23.1 surfed by the 11 countries studied.

Canadians also visited on different Web sites mean 95.2 during the period of three months, 15 more than their American counterparts, who considered the second most, and 42 more than the average in the world.

The number of Canadians who went online at least once in this neighbourhood also increased by 2% in 2009 - 24,989,000 visitors unique up to 24,602,000 in 2009.

Over 55 encouraged this increase, with 12 per cent more people in this age of statement group used that people did in 2009. Now population includes 19 per cent of users of the Internet, a segment of wider than the 18-24 (10 per cent), 25 to 34 years (18 per cent) and 35 to 44 years (18 per cent).

Coupon Web sites, such as SwarmJam or Groupon, drew 36 per cent more visits in 2010 that the previous year.

The study also followed social networking of Canadians, with Facebook (7 per cent), Twitter (11%) and LinkedIn (35 per cent) all claiming significant increases in unique visitors.

Site MySpace and blogs WordPress had their visitor counts shrink considerably - from 42 per cent and 16 per cent, respectively.

Websites, such as Hotmail and Gmail, e-mail also witnessed a decrease of 28 per cent of the number of daily visits.

ComScore study examined patterns in line of residents in the Canada, United States, United Kingdom, France, China, India, Brazil, Japan, Korea South, Russia and Germany.

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