This is part two of my interview with Manny Hernandez President of TuDiabetes.
Part one of this interview can be found at TuDiabetes Interview - Manny Hernandez
Do you see Doctors becoming more involved with patients' sites?
Absolutely! In the recent Health 2.0 conference, Dr. Greene (of drgreene.com fame) was making this point and I completely agree about its importance. We are beginning to work with more doctors on EsTuDiabetes.com, our Spanish community.
How much weight do people give to UGC information compared to professional/official content?
Patients trust UGC a lot because it comes straight from other patients: they don't perceive it to be biased.
Having said that, we always emphasize how critical it is to run ALL health decisions by your doctor before making ANY adjustment to their treatment. Also, when the patient brings to the doctor's office something s/he read online, it directs the doctor to investigate about it, further helping get new information out into the field.
Pharma companies seem to stay away from UGC sites, do you think that will change in the future?
It HAS to change: people talk among themselves, whether Pharma companies like it or not. Not partnering with UGC sites will not change this.
Mobile phones and Health Social Networks, does it work? Will it work?
Platforms such as Ning (which we use for both our networks) offer natively a mobile interface that works very well for mobile users. Certain groups (like US Hispanics, for instance) have embraced mobile access
more than they have internet access, so I think there's opportunity for mobile AND internet-based initiatives.
And a bit about you…
What blogs to you follow?
Diabetes: DiabetesMine, SixUntilMe, David Mendosa's Shareposts,
Technology: TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb,
Health: HealthcareVox, WSJ Health Blog, The Health 2.0 blog
Nonprofits: Netsquared Blog, Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media
Who's the person who influenced you most?
My father. He taught me the value of hard work and ethics. He was a great man and an immense inspiration for me.
Why did YOU choose to work in the health social network arena?
Having diabetes and seeing the power of social media really made it pretty compelling for me to take the plunge. I do not regret it, in spite of all the challenges.
What scares you most about the Health Social Network vertical?
I wouldn't say "scare" but I am concerned when I hear people in this vertical and Health 2.0 at large talking as much about "consumers" and not as much about "patients." As idealistic as this may sound, the message this conveys is one where profits are more important than people and their health, and I have a fundamental issue with that.
What would you like your next project to be? (in 10 years)
We will have developed a number of offline awareness initiatives to reach out to people and educate them
about diabetes and its grave consequences, along with its symptoms, so we can help revert the increasing incidence of diabetes and help those who have it to better manage it.
Do you dream?
I do: I dream of a cure for diabetes. In the meantime, I dream about people touched by diabetes not feeling alone.
How many hours of sleep do you get a night?
5-6
In one sentence – how would you like people to describe YOU?
I am an optimist: I am normally smiling and joking about things, in spite of the challenges we may be facing.
Thank you very much for this interview and GOOD LUCK.
WellSphere fans might not want to continue reading this review, but the way I see it the chances of an unpaid fan showing up are pretty slim.
WellSphere is the classic 1998 story only it's happening a century later. An Israeli entrepreneur living in America convincing an Israeli VC who is about to give birth and knows very little about internet (she's no longer a VC…) that he is going to take over the wellness world with his ground breaking – world changing – patent pending – air blowing – bla bla idea. She buys it and gives a first time entrepreneur with no experience at anything an unprecedented $4.5M seed. WOOOOW. The only one to top that was the VP of Facebook and top Yahoo executive Doug Hirsch of DailyStrength. The funder of Promotions.com (Steven Krein) and His CMO (Unity Stoakes) managed to raise only half of that for OrganizedWisdom. WOOOOW.
To make sure they don't break the chain WellSphere executives play the game when they start off as an enterprise solution, move to being an internet wellness solution then offer a white label solution to institutions (and manage only a beta with their own school) later to become an all around health network and now it look like they want to be a search engine, all this time not missing a single chance to change their UI and theme, one beautiful UI after the other getting trashed and a graphic designer getting rich. A big party with all the major bloggers and a CEO getting drunk on a PR video (I already said Wellness, right??), a lot of angry ex-employees spitting their guts out. And again. And doing major PR screaming: Hey Hey LOOK AT US - We're Just like Facebook. Ammmm – you're not.
What can you get on WellSphere?
The homepage looks great. A nice clean white page with a trendy large search box in the middle. The bottom looks a bit too spammy to me but… wait wait a minute… a white page, big search box and an apple… did they hire the previous OrganizedWisdom designer?
To the test:
Search for bipolar. Landed on a very crowded page full of results in many categories. Articles, wellpedia, video, members, pictures, news, resources, ask an expert. Lots & lots of links to many different areas. Unorganized & threatening as hell. If I'm bipolar this is when I hit my homepage bookmark. But I'm not so I did follow some of those links and the content was actually very good. No community whatsoever but Interesting articles & a lot of info great as a source of information. Too bad the SEO expert took over because the page is just an unbearable user experience.
I couldn't take it anymore and decided to skip the next text.
Final Words
The Good:
1. Raised a lot of money.
2. Most chances they still have some left.
3. Great graphic designer.
The Bad:
1. No real value or meaning.
2. SEO expert took over the inside pages.
3. Check out the awfully annoying JavaScript page for communities.
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