On January 9th, Eons, the 50-plus media company for boomers and seniors
announced the launch of
cRANKy, a search engine for the 50-plus crowd. Eon actually makes the claim that cRANKy's search results are "age-relevant" -- that's some claim to make. Specifically, cRANKy is designed to deliver the most targeted search results for the 50-plus, or boomer, crowd.
Sure, there are plenty of teen sites and kids sites. Similarly, there are many sites that are more targeted toward different age groups -- tweens, thirties, middle-aged etc -- but search?
I read the press release, and despite not being in their targeted age group, I was almost offended. The language is a little condescending in my opinion, constantly referring to the different needs of the 50-plus market. Different needs? Give me a break. I don't like to "wade through millions of search results" either.
cRANKy's Power of Four feature that displays only the top four authoritative sites is a little too simplistic, I think. Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) already display only ten search results per page, so I don't really see the point of having just four.
On the other hand, I hate to admit it, but cRANKy might be on to something. For example, I'm not that easy with my cell as many teens and even younger kids are. In fact, I often ask teens to help me decipher my cell phone's functions. It is also true that when Motorola Inc. (NYSE:MOT) announced its dumb phone, I was thrilled. So perhaps cRANKy's got a point after all.
Cranky's ads will be provided by IAC/InterActiveCorp's (NASDAQ:IACI).
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