Monday, January 7, 2008

'Caregiver' sites launch as boomers seek help with elders

By Christopher Calnan

Websites focused on caregivers -- from nannies to those taking care of elderly parents -- burst on the scene in the late 1990s, then fizzled out quickly among the many dot-coms with faulty business plans.

But in the past six months, three Boston-area companies have launched websites focused on that same online audience, and this time they're faced with a new challenge: attracting users who don't identify themselves as "caregivers."

About 34 million adults in the U.S., or 16 percent of the population, provide care to people 50 or older. The average caregiver age is 47. And about 8.9 million caregivers look after someone at least 50 years old with dementia, according to the San Francisco-based Family Caregivers Alliance.

But most caregivers view themselves as babysitters, elder-care providers, even dutiful family members -- rather than members of a community called "caregivers." So when they search online for resources, the terms they use are more often disease-specific or task-related, bypassing the newly launching online networks targeting them.

Operators of the latest websites are betting on wider adoption of web-based tools compared with the Internet users of a decade ago to help drive awareness of their offerings.

The aging population, diverse audience and resurgence of web-based communities have created a fragmented market, with plenty of new online players trying to gain traction, said Gail Hunt, president of the Maryland-based National Alliance for Caregiving.

"All of a sudden, it's like caregivers have money," she said. "The baby boomers have to care for their parents, and there's money to be made."

And that's why most of the recently launched websites aimed at consumers caring for their parents and aging relatives aren't exactly altruistic, says Paul Kleyman, spokesman for the American Society on Aging. "What's driving it, of course, is interest in advertisers trying to reach the baby boomers," he said.

Companies based locally include Waltham-based Care.com Inc., founded in May 2007, which launched a state-by-state directory in September that lists data related to seven areas of senior services, including financial planning and transportation.

Newton-based CareGiverHelper Inc. beta-tested its website, CareGiverHelper.com, with 100 users during September and October after looking for a way to coordinate information about the founder's mother's affairs following his father's death 18 months ago.

And this month, Sudbury-based Lotsa Helping Hands LLC is implementing its revenue-generating model after operating as a nonprofit since starting in 2005.

Care.com lists 120 profiles of senior care service providers on its metropolitan Boston website, one of the 30 that Care.com operates nationally, spokesman Mark Crowley said.

Unlike other caregiver websites focusing solely on senior care, Care.com lists providers of services including child-care and tutoring. Users get free access to a basic service and pay $10 to $25 per year for a premium service, Crowley said. He declined to disclose the number of users or subscriptions.

Lotsa Helping Hands CEO Hal Chapel said the company has created 6,000 "communities" for users, mostly networks focused on a specific patient's circle of caregivers. Users create about 200 such groups weekly.

This month, Lotsa Helping Hands is beginning to sell licensing fees for companies to place their brands on those websites. The company is also selling banner advertisements on its website and selling some of its content, said Chapel, founder in the mid-1990s of Boston-based Xevo Corp., a middleware software maker for application service providers. Chapel also founded San Francisco-based Vanguard Business Solutions Inc. in the late 1980s.

The elder-care industry has seen an "explosion" of new portals, he said. "We can't even keep up with it," Chapel said. "The question is: Why elder care? Within the caregiving space, elder care is the oldest and most sophisticated of the cares. In the last year, these players see it as way to make money."

At CareGiverHelper, CEO Steve Dworkin founded his company in 2005. "It came from a need I had with my family, and I said, 'Let's commercialize this,'" he said.

CareGiverHelper generates revenue from advertisements on user websites and branded websites and from corporate sponsorships, said Dworkin, who also operates BatteryCorp Inc., a commercial battery supplier.

Other online caregiver sites include New Jersey-based StrengthforCaring.com, an online service of Johnson & Johnson Consumer Companies Inc.

Such dot-coms proliferated during the late 1990s, only to disappear a couple of years later because of weak business plans, she said. "They exploded, and all went away," Hunt said.

This time, she said, websites need to develop comprehensive information combined with a database of local resources for users.

"That's the Holy Grail," Hunt said. "What's available for my mother in Duluth?"