Portals for Older People in Regional Areas: The Greypath Virtual Community

Abstract

GreyPath is a Web portal designed to provide information, services, facilities and links useful to older people. Although carrying some advertising and offering some services for a charge, use of the portal is free. This chapter examines potential uses of this portal and how it might be able to foster the creation and maintenance of virtual Internet communities of older people that could be of benefit to older Australians regardless of where they live. Virtual Internet communities like this are of particular importance to people living in regional or remote areas, those with a disability of some kind, and those who, for whatever reason, find it difficult to mix with other people with similar interests. Although further work needs to be done to assess the effectiveness of the GreyPath portal in fulfilling the needs of older people, this chapter identifies potential advantages of portal technology in this context.