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As part of its ongoing open consultation, Nominet Trust brought together a group of experts this past week to think about how technology might be used to realise new opportunities - and address the persistent challenges such as social isolation, access to adequate care and pensioner poverty - facing people in later life. We weren't looking at how adding digital might make existing services more cost-effective or efficient; nor were we seeking specific solutions. Instead we were hoping to define some areas that would benefit from social innovation with technology.

"But the other thing we have to remember is that there's probably little value in telling people that the internet is good for them. In a sense, this is where the government's Digital by Default strategy is flawed: people feel a bit bullied, they think it's about saving money (which it is) and why should they put themselves out for that? We would be better off thinking about why young people go on the internet. It isn't primarily because the health service needs them to, or even for price comparisons, cheap deals and easy banking. It's because the internet offers the things they love: music, relationships, the chance to make each other laugh. We would say this, of course, but at Gransnet we think we're an attractor for older people online: we offer something that gives older people real pleasure. But with the internet currently designed primarily by 23 year-olds for 23 year-olds, there still isn't enough really compelling content for older people, designed by the over-50s for the over-50s"

""The potential of iPads to benefit seniors cannot be understated," Dan Cohen, a social worker who founded Apps for All, writes via E-mail. "To my surprise (and delight!), the most beneficial aspect of apps is the creation of a new common ground between older persons, their children, and their grandchildren ... The key to success with the iPad is to identify apps of interest to seniors, not razzle-dazzling them with one's favorite apps. What is (or was) their favorite hobby, interest, sport? Zoom into Google Earth's aerial view, or Mapquest's street view of their childhood home and school and you'll bring a smile to their face.""

"A plan to create an online "knowledge base" of resources relating to digital inclusion for older people is being drawn up by Age Action Alliance, an umbrella group of companies and charities led by the Department for Work and Pensions. The alliance, whose members include the BBC, Microsoft, mobile network Three, Age UK and the digital inclusion charity for older people Digital Unite, has tasked a working group with drawing up a "starter strategy" for the knowledge base covering its potential usefulness, purpose and viability. It will then make a final decision on whether to go ahead with the project at the next meeting of its digital inclusion group in February."

"Mention loneliness and most people, whatever their age, seem to think about older people. We have, it seems, an archetypal image of someone frail, elderly, scared to go out and living - perhaps struggling - on their own: a lonely old person. Loneliness is certainly a complicating factor for many older people. Across all four neighbourhoods participating in our three-year action research programme, exploring neighbourhood approaches to loneliness, issues relating to getting and being older 'score' most highly. 'Being older' tops the list of 74 groups of themes collated by our researchers from the hundreds of factors contributing to loneliness identified by local people during extensive fieldwork."