I think I'm the oldest woman on the web but the measurement doesn't work in years. I'm outflanked by 60, 70 and 80 year-olds online. My title might work in bits and bytes, but I'm sure some younger women have logged more megs than I. Perhaps I'm oldest in experience, vision, or talent, but who cares about those things?

Nope, I'm the Oldest Woman on the Web because I grabbed the title for my columns. It catches on; I introduce myself that way. My friends promote me that way and it sticks. I can't feel guilty about a misnomer.

The recent sixth annual NBMA (Northbay Multimedia Association) Christmas party felt as old as a 25th high school reunion. Seven years into the NBMA equals a quarter century new media time. Of the 300 guests there, the seven original board members managed to find each other. We seemed to have shared a lifetime and we ignored the newcomers.

As of 1998, the NBMA hard copy newsletter begun in 1992 feels like a medieval manuscript with handwritten annotations. We were the monks on high stools. The online edition was a renaissance document. Our first web pages were like moveable type. Our early digital business skills were like building mud houses with straw roofs.

And now the magnificent seven: only six years later and we're all brilliant internet strategists able to construct state of the art web sites with e-commerce and database capabilities, dynamic pages, streaming audio and video. We'll probably go right into creating directly on DVD's (digital video disks) in the blink of an eye. Then we'll have our own distribution straight into existing video outlets, our own channels, our own satellites - where will it stop?

When I attended my twentieth college reunion I thought that my lack of titles and money would force me to take a back seat. In fact no one who wasn't a major producer for CBS Television or President of the National Bar Association felt like calling attention to herself. But the truth was that those of us who had accumulated a lot of life experiences like raising children, poverty, talent, struggle and sense of self were considered by even the CBS Producer-types to be the real successes.

Likewise we original NBMA members are happy with our human qualities. We discovered we hadn't given up compassion and warmth for 3500 lines of C++ or the latest Java script (programming languages). And we have all achieved a sort of "elder" status in the industry.

All this leaves us on the brink of the eternal question, "What now?" I recently worked on a project creating features and content for an online community of CIOs (Chief Information Officers). I usually select projects that are new or 'cutting edge' and I rationalized this CIO online community project as cutting edge because we haven't explored very far into the power of online web-based communities.

For example, we still don't know what the role of 'content' such as articles, surveys, analysis, etc., is in relation to stimulating interest in online communities. We still have not determined the most successful business model for online communities from choices such as sponsorships, advertising, benchmarking data, membership fees, etc.

And above all we don't know how online communities translate into, effect, affect, or drive, real world communities. An obvious example would be a powerful political online community and its relationship to various election/voter issues that might affect the outcome of a major election. Another example would be how can online communities stimulate the growth and acceptance of the new WNBA - women's professional basketball.

I no sooner finished my CIO experience than I began working with an online community for people over fifty. I was immediately hit with the similarities between promoting this new online demographic and the early days of promoting women online. Both groups were ignored by the internet community. Both groups were ignored by traditional advertisers (automobiles, books, travel, etc.) Both groups wereignored by computer industry marketers.

We have to constantly cite statistics to support the existence of the over fifty group just as we had to prove there were women online four years ago. We have to demonstrate that this demographic is capable of using computers, will buy them, will contribute to this new culture, and on and on.

One site for this new demographic is called Thirdage.com. Mary Furlong, the founder of Thirdage, and before that the founder of SeniorNet, discovered the French term 'troisieme age' for the period of life when we are free to do what we want. Furlong would like to see "Third Age" ubiquitiously used for this large segment of the population. To quote from www.thirdage.com:

I n my first age," the typical Third Ager says, "I developed into a person. In my second age, I pursued my career and raised my family. Now, in this Third Age of life, I have come into my own. This is my time for creativity, continued learning, and exploration. "

There are nearly 70 million Americans 50 years of age and older in the US today (25.9 % of the population) and this number will grow to nearly 115 million (more than 35% of the population) over the next 25 years. This group is living longer and healthier than ever before. Persons in the US today reaching age 65 can expect to live an additional 17 years.

In early 1997, I read a well-placed column on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. The article discussed an illness like Lou Gehrig's disease, although I'm not sure that was it. The illness was terminal but did affected less than one million people a year. A group of people with the illness had formed an online support group and had quickly spread the word that a medicine which had been approved for another illness was useful in treating this one. Many members of the support group had brought the information to the attention of their medical professionals and had requested the drug.

This is the first time I have seen a story in a prominent place like the front page of the WSJ that challenged AMA medical hegemony.The story stressed the positive aspects of people discovering and sharing valuable information about their illness. I wondered if the Wall Street Journal understands the radical implications of people driving their own medical successes.

For people who have been online a long time, (most of the readers of this column), the story is a common one. But what are the political implications of a group of people acquiring information and demanding changes in behavior (new treatment, new professional medical information) in the public arena? The doctors did not have to be online to get the new information. According to the article, the news had spread very quickly among the people with the disease.

If we ignore the obvious electronic commerce and enterprise resource planning uses of the internet, what will the driving force be in the next few years? Online communities? Focused interest groups like medical patients? Teaching? Education? Training?

Here I sit, the Oldest Woman on the Web, looking back over a thousand web years, and I cannot see the future. I can only imagine that in a short time you might be talking to a flat panel on your wall, like a picture frame. You are requesting the digital information you want and it appears quickly on the screen. When you ask for news from the Oldest Woman, you hear me talking to you. Later you find a picture of your old boyfriend, and then the earnings statement from the CEO of your company.

Hxut somehow, I suspect, that if you want to add to that great array of creative material online, you will still have to hone your tools, relax your imagination, train yourself in the new medium, and above all have a vision and a message to communicate. Those were the same instructions for the artists at Lascaux.

©1998 Sherry Miller. For reprints and permission, please contact Sherry Miller.