Mumsnet to be sold. I presume Gransnet too.

I was on Mumsnet but left due to the rudeness from some posters. Due to where I live I often received the "bulletin" a day late. On commenting I was belittled for not keeping up with the posts. You had to be ready to comment about 2 am or else you needn't bother. Only one member suggested it could be due to internet.

Sky reports that Roberts is being advised by FirstCapital. They describe themselves as:

… an international investment bank headquartered in London with an office in Silicon Valley. We work with high-growth European technology companies on deals typically valued between *$50m-$500m and have sold clients to some of the biggest strategic buyers in the world including Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Google, IBM, PayPal, eBay and others.

*That sounds like she’s hoping for an American investor although the ompany's worth is nowhere near that. It really is small fry.

I don’t know the history of why Gransnet was set up as a separate platform. Why was age 50 seen as the dividing line? Women having children later in life are still caring for them well into their 50s. Irrelevant anyway as the site doesn’t attract people much under the age of 70.

Although the accounts for GN are filleted, I can see that Roberts received a start up grant of £173,000 from a charity which helped disadvantaged and vulnerable people, to set up Gransnet Local. Maybe the original aim was for GN to be something rather different than what it is now?

www.gransnet.com/info/gransnet-local-launch

Amalgamate? You could just slot what are called “forums” here under the different MN talk topics: food, health, money etc and make a new heading for anything specific to Grandparenting between Fun & Games and Health.

It’s clear that many of the GN members also participate in MN as well as other social media platforms so why not amalgamate? It would increase the number of discussion participants and get a younger perspective on things that may affect them as much as older people.

Safe space? The small number of participants makes it anything but. Part of the deliberate lack of investment in GN is the non-existent security. There is a daily stream of bot-created accounts. They could very well be web scraping. It’s very worrying when elderly members talk to these bots as if they are real, as well as disclosing so much about themselves all over the platform including inadvertently disclosing their date of birth, overtly disclosing where they bank and how much money they have. GN must be a magnet for scammers.

I think older people would be far safer in a much larger mixed social media community where they are not singling themselves out as old and potentially vulnerable.

I find GN a bit like falling into the adverts on ITV3, it’s all a bit ‘elderly’ which is fine, but I much prefer MN and spend more and more time over there.
Rarely come on GN these days.

It is ageist to imply that to say something is 'elderly' means it is angative and dull and boring

Gransnet is aimed at older women,so it is bound to reflect subjects that interest us.

I have just been and had a look at Mumsnet. I found it rather dull and mumsy.

Safe space?
Surely it was pretty obvious it was a joke?

Although I am beginning to wonder if it is a 'safe space', it's becoming as abrasive and anti-ageist as MN sometimes.

I think older people would be far safer in a much larger mixed social media community where they are not singling themselves out as old and potentially vulnerable

That comes across as very patronising.

It wasn’t at all obvious that it was joke. Your comment was in response to someone suggesting amalgamation, that you considered GN a safe space compared to MN.

It seems clear that some people do consider GN a safe space in which they can discuss very personal matters and disclose much personal data about themselves. I was merely pointing out that it isn’t.

Gransnet is said to be aimed at people age 50 and over. I see little evidence of contributions from people at the lower end of the demographic.

A recent thread asking for people’s ages elicited five pages of responses. The average age on the first page was 77. Pages two to five looked little different.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with a platform where the average age of contributors is 77 but it is a generation removed from 50. The discussions here reflect that, with a good deal of emphasis on the concerns of people beyond retirement age.

My point is that if GN is to thrive as a stand-alone platform that a potential investor would not want to shut down as a loss-making albatross, it needs to change. And it won’t do that unless it can attract a younger demographic which would in turn attract advertising revenue. And it won’t do that unless the current owners of the business pay some attention to it - which they don’t.

I am not being patronising. I am writing from a position of genuine concern for people who reveal far too much about themselves on an open forum in a world where older people are targetted daily by scammers. If all this personal sharing was buried in a larger, busier forum it would not be anywhere near as noticeable as it is.

Graphite I do not agree. Yes, all of us reveal personal information and life experiences online. As happens with all forums, but none of it is information that can lead to identification - addresses, bank details, children's names etc etc.

It is far too easy to get paranoid about scammers and scamming. 99% of scamming comes from scammers getting access to company and bank records giving names addresses, phone numbers, card details etc.

There was a supicious transaction on DH's credit card last week . It was picked up by the credit card company. I doubt if it was triggered by him revealing on Facebook that he has sold his car, or hates mashed potato, or that his son lives in the USA, for example.

Nor do I see one good reason why GN should need to stretch its demographic, GN is, as i says on the can, aimed at older women. Once you start stretching the demographic to younger group it isn't GN anymore but some amorphous MN clone.

One of the things that bothers me about this thread is the disrespect older women are showing for their own demographic.Graphite is among them. I f we cannot have the self-respect to say we are older and we and our interests are due the same respect paid to other age groups, then what is the point of GN at all?

Instead of attacking me M0nica, perhaps read a little about hacking and web scraping and then think about why this site attracts so many bot-created accounts and the reason the latter are created.

The point of GN is the same as MN. It’s for advertisers to push their products. That’s why MN was created. Roberts was awarded her CBE not for services to parents, mothers, grandmothers or to women in general, but for services to the economy.

The fact that GN has never made a profit in its entire fourteen years of existence and now loses over half a million pounds a year can only be because advertisers don’t find it worth spending much or any of their advertising budget on. Again, when older people are said to have so much wealth, do you not wonder why that might be? Why don’t advertisers find GN attractive?

The subject of this thread is about the possible sale of the company and, as a consequence, whether GN will survive in its current format. I don’t see how it can unless American private equity investors suddenly start valuing altruism over making a fast buck.

I think Justine has done more for womens rights than most women.

Graphite Thu 05-Feb-26 10:00:00

I'm wondering why you have recently joined a site which is primarily aimed at older people, when you seem to have somewhat ageist views about the demographic on here?

Additionally, you do not seem to have much time for Justine Roberts, and appear to see little to recommend the site either now it is for sale. 🤔

Strange.

For heaven's sake. I don’t have ageist views. I’m old myself. I have merely pointed out that this is a platform which is marketed as being for people age 50 and over but the average age of contributors appears to be mid 70s. As I clearly wrote upthread there is nothing wrong with that.

But there is something wrong when a platform is losing over half a million pounds a year because it cannot attract advertisers. There is something wrong when its owners won’t spend any money on improvements or even updating content. There is something wrong when a platform becomes a magnet for bot-created accounts which may be web scraping.

All of these things will be considered by potential investors doing due diligence.

Instead of your ad hominem attacks why not focus on the issue of the potential sale and what that might signify?

There is something wrong when a platform becomes a magnet for bot-created accounts which may be web scraping.

You keep mentioning this.

How many do you really think there are?
One a day? Or a whole lot more??

Graphite

Instead of attacking me M0nica, perhaps read a little about hacking and web scraping and then think about why this site attracts so many bot-created accounts and the reason the latter are created.

The point of GN is the same as MN. It’s for advertisers to push their products. That’s why MN was created. Roberts was awarded her CBE not for services to parents, mothers, grandmothers or to women in general, but for services to the economy.

The fact that GN has never made a profit in its entire fourteen years of existence and now loses over half a million pounds a year can only be because advertisers don’t find it worth spending much or any of their advertising budget on. Again, when older people are said to have so much wealth, do you not wonder why that might be? Why don’t advertisers find GN attractive?

The subject of this thread is about the possible sale of the company and, as a consequence, whether GN will survive in its current format. I don’t see how it can unless American private equity investors suddenly start valuing altruism over making a fast buck.

The CBE was awarded for services to the economy which were a direct result of the Mumsnet site.

But if a site has to turn itself into something it isn't to attract advertisers, then what is the point of the site? It might as well just shut down.

I have just been seeing what ever other sites are available for us. It seems to be about 3, Silver Surfers, which I did join years ago, but never used, this seems to bave been taken over by something calld Rest Less and that seemed to be all about giving us advice not linking us in online groups for discussion and Buzz50, which seems to be more of a way of finding friends than anything.

Gransnet is unique, in being primarily a discussion forum. perhaps they need to put some more effort into marketing it.

Look at the boxes on the right hand side. The Style and Beauty articles are years old and pretty dreary. The same with 'Latest'. If these were expanded with more information on more subjects. Travel, Home, New ideas etc etc. How about making an effort to get information about it in the wider media?

Someone asked about bot posts. Yes, I have seen quite a few recently. They are picked up and reported very quickly, but take a while to drop down.

Maremia

Someone asked about bot posts. Yes, I have seen quite a few recently. They are picked up and reported very quickly, but take a while to drop down.

We had our own moderators, I think, at one time but have to share them with MN now.

How many move from MN to GN when they become grandparents? They're not going to stay young for ever.

I'm 61 and use both MN and GN. I like GN because I'm a grandmother and the discussions are often more relevant to me. @Graphite might think the average age here is 77 but what evidence is there for that?

I'm 77 and anything but average.

kittylester

I'm 77 and anything but average.

😂

argymargy, I did explain exactly how I arrived at the number 77, if you read my post. I didn’t conjure it from thin air.

M0nica. GN would have to attract advertisers to make it a going concern and not a business losing over half a million pounds each year. The group depends on advertising revenue for its income. As it is, GN is insolvent. At its last year end, it owed almost 290K and had just £27,000 in the bank.

If MN can turnover 9 million a year, why can’t GN do something similar? Older people are supposed to be the ones with money while under 50s are all struggling with debt so why is the GN demographic not seen as a lucrative target for advertising?

You wrote, The Style and Beauty articles are years old and pretty dreary. The same with 'Latest'.

And that’s my point really. GN is outdated and tired because Roberts will not put any money into it. All her focus is on MN. The MN accounts are always full of how much is being invested to improve MN. Nothing is done to improve GN.

The Sky article says MN employs 75 people. According to the accounts, GN employs one person. That’s how unimportant it is. Why doesn’t it have 75 employees?

How many times have members asked for a simple edit button or for games to be removed from the Active Discussion list? And been ignored every time. I spend a couple minutes each day hiding the games. If I don’t keep on top of the task, the active list I see would be filled with them. (No offence to people who like to play them but listing words isn’t a discussion.)

And that’s what a prospective investor will see at first glance, a site where women are playing games. That’s what potential advertisers will also see; viewers who won’t have the membership capability to be able to hide them.

As for bots, we don’t know that they are doing but their daily presence is worrying, as is that it’s left to members to report suspicious activity. The company should be pro-actively monitoring and installing security measures to try to stop it happening in the first place.

It’s all speculation anyway but if GN does close then it’ll be Roberts’ fault for letting it run down such that few would think it has any connection to the parent company.

I see that someone has started a thread asking why there are no competitions … In the good old days, there used to be regular competitions. The competition link on GN now directs people to MN where there are two competitions; one for a family holiday, two adults and two children and £500 towards a family-skiing holiday. Why is there no offer for a holiday or money towards a holiday that would suit an older couple or heaven forbid, a single person. It isn’t me who's being ageist. It’s the company itself.

One last thing. Does anyone remember the now closed Saga forum? I was a member for about five years until is was closed without warning in 2013. Here’s the story:

www.independent.co.uk/news/media/online/saga-zone-social-website-for-elderly-shut-down-over-racist-homophobic-and-antisemitic-comments-8483802.html

Saga was a much better organised forum with distinct interest groups rather than everything lumped together as here. I only took part in arts and culture and meet up groups. I didn’t participate in news and politics although I was aware of heated debates over certain issues. At the time of the closure, the Saga holiday and travel group were looking for investors. Word on the grapevine was that potential investors were appalled at the what they saw and that's what lead to the sudden closure.

This platform isn’t immune from the same kind of language.

argymargy

I'm 61 and use both MN and GN. I like GN because I'm a grandmother and the discussions are often more relevant to me. @Graphite might think the average age here is 77 but what evidence is there for that?

The average age may well not be 77, argymargy as Graphite says she assumed the average age is 77 from the responses of posters on one thread, so not really evidence. In fact he/she went on to say the responses on the following pages were different.
Rather like polling 20 people in a town and drawing a conclusion about the whole population of that town.

A recent thread asking for people’s ages elicited five pages of responses. The average age on the first page was 77. Pages two to five looked little different.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with a platform where the average age of contributors is 77 but it is a generation removed from 50.

Many posters may, of course, be reluctant to give personal information on a social media site.

For heaven's sake Allira. Get off my case. Look at the thread I drew the age average from and do you own sums.

www.gransnet.com/forums/health/1354909-How-old-do-you-feel-and-how-old-are-you

In fact, I said little different which means "much the same" not different - as you have just quoted.

I don't know how clear I can make it but the point is this is marketed as a platform for people over the age of 50 and it does not seem to attract many people under the age of 60. And the question is why?

Perhaps stop picking apart every word I say and engage with the question of why GN loses so much money every year and why it would be unattractive to an investor.

Oh dear, a touch sensitive on this thread!
Posters seem to be upsetting you, not just me.

I was just explaining to argymargy that in fact the average age of Gransnetters may well not be 77 and that no-one knows.

Ad hominen attack again.