Monday, February 25, 2008

The Mover

Veteran techie Golin gets into social networking at Eons

By Amber Gay

Eric Golin says he's thriving in his new position as chief technology officer at Eons.com Inc. With 25 years in the tech market under his belt, Golin says he's excited to be focused on bringing baby boomers "a social network they can relate to."

Eons.com, founded by CEO Jeff Taylor, who is known best as the creator of the wildly successful Monster.com, is a social network designed for people born between 1946 and 1964 -- baby boomers. Eons, headquartered in the Charlestown Navy Yard, offers interactive content, tools and community information geared toward that demographic.

"Being 48, it is much more appropriate for me and for other baby boomers to be able to engage and interact with each other. The site allows them to find the right way to connect with people they know now and the people they knew in the past."

This position has offered Golin an interesting and unique opportunity to use his technological and business skills to build a new platform for people his own age, and structure it in a way that is relevant to the community today, he said.

"The whole area of social networking applications is very interesting," said Golin. "There are a lot of opportunities to be successful, and to be a part of changing ways to interact (online)." He said he's also focused on developing a scalable platform that moves even further ahead of rapidly growing social networks.

"We are trying to build what we think is the best social network for baby boomers possible, and to have flexible development for the organization of the social network," said Golin.

Before joining Eons, Golin served as CTO at Content Objects Inc. He also co-founded Argo Technology Inc., a company focused on personal search technologies, and served as its CTO and vice president of engineering. During his seven-year tenure at BroadVision Inc., Golin rose through the ranks and eventually served the company as CTO. While at BroadVision, Golin worked with companies such as American Airlines, Citibank, Home Depot, Sears and Wal-Mart.

"I have a number of different experiences that include working on the building of large-scale web applications," he said. "I have done a lot of work in building consumer-facing companies, and I have a lot of career experience working with entrepreneur and startup companies."

Golin has authored more than 30 articles and technical reports. He has also co-invented patented systems and methods for electronic commerce.

"It is good experience to take small companies and drive them to success in a technology perspective," he said.