You may have noticed a proliferation of all kinds of
websites for caregivers. According to
Mass High Tech: The Journal of New England Technology, the surge is partly a response to need--and partly a response to commercial opportunity.
“All of a sudden, it’s like caregivers have money,” said Gail Hunt of the National Alliance for Caregiving. “The baby boomers have to care for their parents, and there’s money to be made.”
Some of the sites, in other words, are all about the advertising.
But folks who run “altruistic” sites with no profit motive can learn some lessons from the often young entrepreneurs who understand social networking. Chief among these: the term “caregiver” doesn’t resonate with Boomers. We don’t see ourselves as caregivers but as family members—or even “baby sitters.” Caregiving is a market with more than one niche.
Realizing that, some sites are including services for the other side of the Boomer sandwich: childcare and tutoring, for example.
One site is called Lotsa Helping Hands. Developed in cooperation with the National Alliance for Caregiving, it has “created 6,000 ‘communities’ for users, mostly networks focused on a specific patient’s circle of caregivers,” according to article author Christopher Calnan.
Sites that list providers often offer a free basic service and charge monthly rates for “premium” services as well as using advertising.
Hunt warns that most of these businesses will disappear like the dot.coms – unless they develop the “Holy Grail:” comprehensive information combined with a database of local resources for users.
In Milwaukee, the Family Caregiver Support Network offers diverse help and information and a social support network for caregivers--for free.
Other excellent noncommercial sites include the Family Caregiver Alliance, and Hunt's organization's website Caregiving.org.
Strength for Caring is a great site owned by a commercial enterprise, Johnson & Johnson.
We’d love to hear about the best websites for caregivers—and what’s needed but not there. Comments and guest blog entries are most welcome!
1 comment:
Chris -
Without question, aging is a time of profound change. There are all sorts of new challenges that we will have to face, and caregiving is one of the primary resources that most of us will have to use.
Because the challenges, needs, and resources are constantly changing, I built a web site called wikisenior (same look as wikipedia) where people could post and/or find the latest information. It is too new to have much on it yet, but I did add the Milwaukee Aging Consortium to the geographic pages for Milwaukee. (I used to live on Newport Court up near Shorewood, so I keep my eye pealed for Milwaukee.)
Google Ads are turned on, but I doubt they will generate revenues. However, I do think it might improve search engine results.
Please feel free to change your listing or add any other article to the site. What I’ve tried to do is provide the technical infrastructure. I’m frankly looking for most of the answers myself.
Post a Comment