paidContent - Baby Boomer Social Network TeeBeeDee Closes; Cites "Disappointing" Business Opportunity

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Joseph Tartakoff

paidContent.org
Tuesday, June 30, 2009; 6:07 PM

TeeBeeDee.com—a social network aimed at baby boomers—is shutting down. In a note to members, founder Robin Wolaner said that the company had lacked the resources to continue developing the site: “Our business opportunity proved disappointing.” The site had raised more than $7.5 $9 million from Shasta Ventures and Monitor Ventures, as well as from a series of high-profile executives, including Jan Brandt, the former chief marketing officer of AOL (NYSE: TWX). Its board included Shelby Bonnie, the founder of CNET. Wolaner herself was the founder of Parenting magazine and a former executive vice president of CNET.

At the time of TeeBeeDee’s launch, Wolaner said she had started TeeBeeDee for much the same reason as Parenting: “I recognized that people my age were like our parents and needed an outlet that reflected that. Looking at social networks today, people my age are looking for information, not hanging out, so I saw a need there too.? But baby boomers apparently did not want to be categorized away by their age. According to Compete.com, TBD.com had only 70,000 unique visitors last month. Instead, they were quite content with heading over to open social networking sites like Facebook, which has seen its fastest growth in users over 55.