Health Social Networks

TuDiabetes Interview - part two

2008-12-26T13:42:00.000-08:00

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 - if only that name was true

2008-12-18T11:12:00.000-08:00

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.

The beginning of the end

2008-12-07T10:05:00.000-08:00

2008 is nearly over and it’s time to catch up on our list of Health Social Networks.

With the economic doing a big bungee jump (only I don’t see the rope anywhere) these networks are not going to escape the downfall especially when all of them depend on advertising and not showing any interesting monetizing attempts. The MSN-Multiply deal shows what the big fellows are thinking….

So - How many of them will be here for the 2009 recap?

DailyStrength – We were the first to say that DS are in big trouble. Last week we got the confirmation with its mercy acquisition. From the looks of it DS will stay alive but no efforts will be made to make it any better and eventually (maybe 2010) it will evaporate.

MedHelp – The only member of the top list that is still pushing forward in full speed. MedHelp enjoys being a veteran with long time traffic generators. They will continue to grow providing they figure its worth it…. it’s a great over whole site with a great future.

MDJunction – Brand new look last week and still talking like a marathon runner (which is a nice way to say they don’t have the money to be a sprinter…). MDJunction will be here next year too. How big?? Not sure as they keep surprising me.

HopeCube – Is there a doctor in the house?? I think the patient is dead….

TauMed – Unfortunately I think the doc was already here….
Trusera – Still pushing forward full throttle, too bad traffic doesn’t seem to be picking up… they raised enough money to keep going and I’m sure we’ll keep seeing them in 2009, but not much after.
ICYou – Great site, great looks but again – is anyone using it? doesn’t look like it. The concept of video sharing for health should work but is it enough for a standalone site? I’d be looking for them to join another network and MAYBE survive.

PatientsLikeMe – PatientsLikeMe are here to stay. They raised enough. They keep growing and brand awareness is something I respect. If PatientsLikeMe goes down this list will too.

Inspire – Not sure about Inspire. The concept is nice but being an underdog in a crashing market is not the safest place to go. I guess we will be seeing Inspire in 2009 but if I were them I’d pray every morning for all the others to crash…

Wellsphere – As long as crazy VCs are still around, WellSphere will still be here. Changing their goals and looks every couple of months and making the most of the $5M they raised… Ommm… look for my WellSphere review in a couple of weeks.

WebTribes – Anyone say Inspire????

I’m Too Young for This – It saddens me to say that but I don’t think they are going to make it.

SugarStats – Good solid site. No chance for a dream exit but it will be here and it will gain strength.
TuDiabetes – Great site. Great leadership. I truly hope they will find the funding to keep it going as there is nobody like them!

dLife – Good solid site. Please read Sugarstats.

Diabetes Mine – Sugarstats, dLife, TuDiabetes. They all seem good but there is no room for all 4. If I were them I’d seek a merger of some kind.

Real Mental Health – Seems to me they’ve been here before I was born (40 this year!) and there is no reason that will change. But… Hey….. how do they do it?

OrganizedWisdom – OW was built to last, I love OrganizedWisdom. This great site and it’s approach to working from home doesn’t seem to be having any financial trouble but the cost of paying for human edited content (the rest of the sites enjoy the free UGC) might kick them in the ass eventually. There is just not enough money in this market!

Healia – Activity seems at an all time low :-( people are just not using Healia despite all their efforts. What are they doing wrong? Can’t really say – maybe I’ll dive deep in the next couple of months. Money is not an issue it just depends on the decision of Meredith Corporation to pull the plug. For now I think they’ll keep it – how long? I’m not sure.
iMedix – We all know what I think of them… but I have to say they are doing their best!

again, as I’ve said with so many others on this list NOBODY IS USING IT. iMedix CEO said they are on the way to raise more funds, that was almost a year ago and nothing happened so I guess 2009 will reveal a mercy funding or sad departure.

WeGoHealth – Yet another nice site with no members…

Healthchapter – I’m not really sure how this site got here… with an alexa rank of 6M it’s even worth writing about…

CareFlash – Anyone say HealthChapter? When your ‘latest on the forums’ in the homepage has a post from Nov 20 and Nov 19…. Well….. DOCTOR.

WeAre.Us – WeAreUS are the newest addition to this list. Since they raised they funding just a few months ago I’m betting we’ll see them all year long. It’s a nice site. They do a lot of PR but it is so Inspire with even less traffic. I will give them the benefit of the doubt for being new but as I already said – NO CHANCE.

I really wanted to make a cheerful ‘here comes 2009’ post but I really don’t think there is a reason for such.

GOOD LUCK everyone…..

TuDiabetes Interview - Manny Hernandez

2008-11-12T08:15:00.000-08:00

I would like to thank Manny Hernandez President of TuDiabetes for this email interview.

I will publish the article in two parts as it was long and interesting ;-)

TuDiabetes is very different from the rest of the companies listed on our list of Health social networks, It's a nonprofit with a message rather than the rest who are for profit with a goal.

Can you introduce yourself and your site?

I am Manny Hernandez, the President of the Diabetes Hands Foundation, a nonprofit focused on connecting people touched by diabetes (people who have diabetes as well as their friends, family and others who ultimately are affected by it) and raising diabetes awareness.

We run two social networks, TuDiabetes.com (in English) and EsTuDiabetes.com (in Spanish), through which we currently reach out to more than 6,000 people worldwide, growing at a rate of about 10% every month.

How do you describe the Market your company is in?

As a nonprofit, I don't like to think of us as being in a "market". We cater to people WITH diabetes and the people around them, along with those who need to be aware of how critical the current situation is with diabetes.

How large is your team and what are their backgrounds?

Currently, we have a full-time staff of two: myself and a Creative Director, Andreina Davila. We have a board of five persons, a board of advisors made up of 6 professionals, a team of Administrators that helps us run the two social networks and a team of volunteers in the hundreds of people.

What is THE ONE thing you do better than all the rest?

One of the things that makes us unique is our emphasis on community-centric diabetes awareness initiatives.

What is THE ONE thing you wish you could do better?

We need to further our offline presence, so we can reach out to more people who cannot or prefer not to connect online with others touched by diabetes.

Please choose one competitor and say a few good words about them…

We work with many other groups that we share part of our goals with. One of the groups we work with closely is DiabetesTalkFest, our partners in offering chats about diabetes to our members and anybody else who wants to participate: they have weekly chats for people to jump in and learn from each other and periodically invite experts that touch on specific topics of interest.

Where do you see your company in 5-10 years?

That depends on whether there is a cure for diabetes in that timeframe. If it has been found, perhaps we may not be around... but until there is a cure for diabetes, we will continue to reach out to more people touched by diabetes, both online and offline while we also work to help people who do not have diabetes better understand what living with diabetes is like, what are the symptoms of diabetes, etc.

What is the greatest challenge to your success?

Today, it's gotta be resources (isn't it for eveybody?) We face a growing need for funding so we can grow our team to cater to the growing needs from our members and to be able to grow the way we know we need to grow. In the meantime, we are working on developing our volunteer program but we are open and looking for sponsors who may want to partner with us to help us underwrite some of the programs we conduct.

How will the current market crash influence the Health Social Networks?

There will be consolidations. There will also be some networks that may run out of fuel due to the current situation: I hope they are not lost in the midst of it all, and end up being absorbed by others. Ultimately, the most important thing is the patient and any health social network that goes away leaves patients hanging, patients that benefit from the interactions they have with other patients through the network.

Most Health Social Networks rely on Advertising (Everybody is using Adsense). Do you see anything different in the future? Will it be enough?

It not enough, unless you run a network that has hundreds of thousands of members, resulting in very large traffic figures (we currently get a combined 100K Visits and 500K+ Pageviews per month).

Also, AdSense doesn't really give publishers (networks, in our case) much control over the quality of the ads PRIOR to them appearing: you find yourself removing URLs from "miracle drugs" that are fairly insulting to patients. It would be ideal to have a greater degree of control over the quality of the ads, which is one of the areas where I see change coming: either Google offering it or more players entering this space (there are a few already) acknowledging the importance quality has.

That’s it for now… I will publish the second part soon.

If you are involved with a health social network and would like to do an email interview please contact me.

Sam

MDJunction keep surprising me

2008-10-27T14:07:00.000-07:00

MDJunction doesn’t look like any other WEB2.0 site. It looks like something taken from the 20^th century…

‘Back in the days’ when we started looking at what’s out there I ran across MDJunction, noted that it was relevant but didn’t look like anything that would stick and moved on. About a year later their name came up again, it still didn’t look like something that would stick but… it was bigger. Looking at them now, I still don’t get it – but it’s BIGGER!

So what is MDJunction? It’s DailyStrength only smaller and not as trendy looking & feeling (anyone say 20^th century??)

BUT the funny thing about it is that now (and it did take me almost two years) I realize that there is a place for this kind of social network and at the rate they seem to grow* I think that they are proving it. Not everyone is looking for a WEB2.0 design before they join a site, most sick people don’t go to TechCrunch to find a recommendation for a support group and THAT MIGHT COME AS A SURPRISE but people get sicker as they get older and well… older people are 20^th century ;-)

While DS is the big multi-chain world-wide Supermarket, MDJ is the local grocery store. I’m not sure what the statistics are on this but I have a feeling that at least 50% of the people still like shopping at the tiny store 300ft from their doorstep that feels like home. THAT IS what the people in MDJunction do so elegantly – it feels like home more than any of the other sites on my list of Health Social Networks .

I decided to put it to the same test I did with DailyStrength. Searched for bipolar (in their search box) and got a… google result for their Bipolar Support Group. A little more than 2,000 group members (DailyStrength - 12,700), 17 of them were online. The discussion bulletin seemed very active, people were also publishing diary posts (some kind of blog?!?). Nice. Again – not as big as DailyStrength, but still full of people And they all seem to be hugging each other…. Is that legal?

Second test, same as DS: Complete Blood Count. NOTHING RELEVANT ;-(. Well… I’m not going to delete my WebMD bookmark yet….

Three paragraphs up I wrote “at the rate they seem to grow*” the reason for the remark is that my estimates regarding their growth are purely based on what I see when I look at their site from time to time. There is really not much info about these guys and as far as I can tell no real funding round up until now. Again – I’m guessing. It seems that the founders (I do know that their names are Roy & Alon) are really shy… no PR, no interviews, no effort for blogger presence and I haven’t seen any of them in conferences and so. Do they really think they can keep growing and become a dominate force while staying so far away from the scene? I don’t… and I don’t like offering people to do an interview and not get any response!

One last thing before I get to my final words. It is not very welcoming to be assigned a default image that looks like a no face, depressed cartoon. It’s horrifying and totally contradicts what you’re trying to build here.

Final words

The Good:

Feels like home.
Keeps surprising me.
Most of ‘The Bad’ bellow can be improved with modest funding. Funding (for those who forgot) relates to money, something we used to have.

The Bad:

DailyStrength.
NO marketing strategy what so ever.
Their graphic designer needs to GO HOME or at least surf the web a bit….

New player in the niche - not for long....

2008-10-13T09:26:00.000-07:00

TechCrunch wrote about a new company in our niche - weare.us

personally i don't give them the slightest chance....
but TC wrote about them, i wonder why?!?!?

you HAVE TO read what Doug Hirsch wrote about them in one of the comments there ;-)

and.. just as a courtesy to TechCrunch I'm updating my list of Health Social Networks to include them too.

Revolution Health – RED ALERT!

2008-10-06T10:14:00.000-07:00

Well we all saw this coming in the last few months but even so it is shocking. Waterfront Media buying Revolution Health valuating the company at around $100 M, meaning all the hard work put by the top executives in the field (Steve Case, Colin Powell; Jim Barksdale, Frank Raines & Carly Fiorina) yields a $-0.50 on the $1 return… OOppppsss.

I’m having flashbacks of Mercata & Paul Allen (he also talked about a revolution back then) is it 2001 again?

How can we explain this?

Is it the falling economy? Hubris – one man trying to take over a whole vertical? Excessive acquisitions? Or maybe just the troubling fact that this market is not as big as we once thought?

DailyStrength are in financial troubles and had to cut back dramatically after failing to raise additional funds, iMedix declared they are about to close big $$$ funding about a year ago… and so many others are making disturbing noises you just can’t ignore anymore. Will my list of Health Social Networks going to be half the size in one year? Maybe less (time and long…).

Did it ever make sense to seed fund a niche social network website with $7M (DailyStrength) or even $4.5M? (WellSphere who seem to be using the money to change the UI and who they are every 3 months…). Wouldn’t it make more sense to give the entrepreneurs $1M and send them off to prove there is a business hiding somewhere around here? No wonder no one wants to invest in this market now. Hey – Steve Case lost $100M isn’t this enough ????

The only chance is in finding the business and all I see is advertising (and mostly google adsense), that can work for a small company with low overheads and a really laid back investor …. How many of these have that? if I had to bet, I’d put my money on those who raised moderate amounts and managed to gain some strength. Inspire, MDJunction and maybe Trusera (not sure about the strength part here) have the highest chance to keep their heads above water in the next 12-18 months.

Looking back at M&As in the market doesn’t explain these investments either. HealthTalk and CarePages might have done nicely, but that was Revolution at its best. Other than that not a single outstanding acquisition and if anyone here thinks they are going to be AOL’s next bebo and sell for $850M, you forgot to take your pills today.

I don’t think I ever wrote something with so many question marks before, but I guess that’s just how I feel about your market right now. Come on over everyone, there’s plenty of businesses in IPTV ;-)

Sam

iMedix is going nowhere

2008-09-15T08:52:00.000-07:00

You probably realized by now that I'm a big fan of the Health Social Networks gang. I'm an advocate and a strong believer, but that doesn't mean I like everything that's being done…

I don't really like iMedix. I know I'm not the first to say that and bigger bloggers have done so in the past (iMedix combines health search and community — but does neither well, iMedix: Social search that creeps me out ) but I just have to get it out of my system.

I first heard the name at the 2007 Crunchies when they were announced as Best new startup. I got to tell you a lot of heads moved at that announcement. Could it be such a wonderful company with so many fans but none the less nobody in the audience ever heard of them?? I mean the 'Best new startup' is a minor trophy at the Crunchies, but not that minor. Later that day I got the chance to listen to the entrepreneurs talk to the media. I have to say that I liked them. They seemed eager, energetic and with that 'spark' in their eyes everyone talks about. But is that enough?

Every time I log into iMedix I get the feeling that there is really nothing there.

The search results are OK and even if I let the beer get too much to my head and say it's a little better than google (it's not, but let's just play) would anyone remember to visit that site and not go for the BIG G to look for stuff??? It doesn't work like that! and that's not even the problem…..

iMedix homepage says "Members of the iMedix community help each other by sharing their experiences". That is not what I see there. Trying to get someone to talk to you is hard, you're most likely to find yourself talking to an iMedix employee, an eager teenager or just someone like you who's trying to find others who know something about his condition (which is not the info you are looking for…). There is no collective data, no shared experience and well… nothing really. Can you even compare this to a visit to DailyStrength or Medhelp? No way.

I visited the site 3 times yesterday, hours apart. On all 3 visits to the home page under “Featured Questions” (you’d think they’d be special) I got a question that was actually an email address this got my curiosity flowing and I clicked on the ‘Featured Question’ to find that the meaningful question (only an email address of someone who is probably a spammer) was answered twice by ….the same guy. Needless to say that the answers are not any better than the question. I got that at 3 out of 3 times during the day!!

Is this the activity you’d expect from the Best new startup of 2007, 10 months after voted as such??

I wasn't going to give up on my research there. After all they did win a prize. I checked them out in Alexa and Quantcast.

At first glace their alexa graph was about to change everything I thought. It's growing. Tremendously…. but hey… have you ever seen a traffic surge that looks like that? My only guess would be paid traffic. You pay - people come, budget runs out - they don't. There is nothing wrong with buying traffic. It's legal. Everyone does it and it works in many cases, provided you paid for quality traffic…. scrolling down the page (still alexa) I might have gotten a clue on the quality of the traffic. 3 Month average page views: 1.25. that's right folks – an award winning social network with 1.25 page views per visitors. DailyStrength shows 7.79, PatientsLikeMe 5.9 etc'

So we know alexa isn't always right. I checked my favorite Quantcast. The picture here is a bit different. It looks like the sites' share of visits has been going down for almost 4 months now (same as compete estimates) and not as moody as alexa shows, but the interesting part is on the right side. Quantcast has two 'related' sections on the right side (Audience Also Visits, Audience Also Searches For) each of them with 15 items/sites. I consider it highly accurate and often use it when searching for companies. Out of 30 sites and keywords listed NOT A SINGLE ONE is related to health, social networks or iMedix in general. If you do the same check for most of the sites in my Health Social Networks List the ratio is 28 out of 30. I'm not really sure what that means but I know it ain't good ;-)

Final words

The Good:

Eager entrepreneurs.
UI looks professional and friendly.
An amazing seed funding that enables a lot of PR.

The Bad:

I couldn't find any value.
The data on traffic monitoring sites looks unflattering.
The 'beta' tag. If you're live for more than a year and still consider yourself beta something is not going right.

I wish the people in iMedix the best of luck and I would truly be happy to see them thrive (as I said they do look like nice people) but for now – I think iMedix is just not going anywhere.

A dlife-ful site

2008-09-09T06:19:00.000-07:00

dLife is the first of the niche social networks I’ll be covering and there is a good reason for that – it's a great site!

Disclaimer – I don’t have diabetes, don’t wish I had it, don’t plan on getting it later in life and I know very little about it. Now that we’ve done that lets look at the site.

dLife look and feel is a combination of a friendly looking homemade site (MDJunction) and the pro Web2.0 stylish ones (OrganizedWisdom). It is balanced and beautiful and makes me really want to check it out.

Inside it is full of tools and features to control your diabetes and live a better life.

You can read and share Diabetic Recipes, join forums to discus experiences with fellow diabetics, read the many pages with pure info, ask your questions and get answers from experts FOR FREE! And there is even a section for ‘Tips for Smart Diabetes Shoppers’. The flow of the site as the UI suggests is friendly and welcoming and I found it easy to navigate (a big problem with social networks today).

dLife was founded in 2004 and if you’d look at their Advisory Board list you’ll find many well known celebs from sports medicine and a lot of TV (and yes they also have their on dLife TV).

I couldn’t really test the quality of the content and tools of the site (as I said I know nothing about it) but from a technical marketing point of view – it’s a very nice site, I’m just not very clear on how the ____ are they going to monetize it, cause the ads they are running now will probably not even pay for the water supply.

Final words

The Good:

I love it – it’s a great looking site.
Serious people with serious money behind it.
Very close to becoming a portal for diabetes – good for them.

The Bad:

How are they going to pay the bills?
While browsing I got the feeling it was not as crowded as I’d expect it to be.
Niche but busy surroundings – SugarStats & TuDiabetes are there too!

Will I go there if I had diabetes? Sure

The people rest their case.

Google Health Test Drive

2008-08-20T01:05:00.000-07:00

I just found (about two months late) a great review of Google Health by Matthew Holt from The Health Care Blog.I think it's well worth the time. http://www.thehealthcareblog.com/the_health_care_blog/2008/06/google-health-.html

Enjoy,
Sam

The Internet's fastest growing health-focused social network

2008-08-17T04:58:00.000-07:00

DailyStrength is a great social network for health and by its own description ‘
the Internet's fastest growing health-focused social network’.
So – what is all about?
More than 500 different ‘support groups’, thousands of people who come everyday to talk to other likeminded people, set goals, get advice from people just like them and see who else shares the same treatments and therapies … friendships, journals stories from health professionals and more and more….
DailyStrength (aka DS by its members) came to light late 2006 with a burst of energy. Founded by top executives from Yahoo (dealing directly with Yahoo communities) and funded by RedPoint ($5-7 Million) they recruited VPs with long bios, got all the necessary PR from the top tech bloggers (anyone say TechCrunch?) and didn’t miss a single Health-Internet-Technology conference. But they didn’t stop there – they worked! DS is an active thriving community (more than 300,000 monthly visitors according to Compete.com) with many addicted members active forums and good spirit. I think everyone needs to take a look!
I put it to the test: searching for bipolar I immediately landed in their support group and was overwhelmed. 29 different people were ready to chat with me, 12700 registered members (seemed big but not that much) a forum post every 3 minutes on average – what more can you ask for? They have more…. Blog posts by a Dr. Orrange (a smiling Dr. who by her profile is feeling Good…), people giving hugs to each other (kind of made feel like everyone already knows the others – what about me ?? ;-) and some info on the disorder.
Second test: Complete Blood Count. Search got me to the High Blood Pressure Support Group. The groups looks really nice (like the bipolar group but smaller) but I just couldn’t find any information to help me with my blood count results… I’m sure that if I’d stay there for another hour or two, ask questions and look real good under all the forum topics I would eventually find some info about the blood test, but hey@!@ this is the internet I want answers now!
Final words
The Good:
1. A huge website with lots of members.
2. Great source for support and finding likeminded people.
3. The Internet's fastest growing health-focused social network (I just love marketing slogans).
The Bad:
1. Missing some personal touch. I have no idea how you can do it in such a big website, but I expect a site this big to know.
2. Some of the regulars are complaining that because it got so big they are having manageability problems. I didn’t notice it for myself but heard some say that.
3. There is nothing spectacular or really exciting about the site. I know some people will look at this and say – what the ____ do you mean… but what I am trying to say is that if you’re such a great site (and it is) and you have so many members (they do) and you say you are the fastest growing (they say) I expect something extra, some feeling of excitement like the first time I joined facebook. There is nothing wrong with just doing what you do and doing it good – but I want more.
As for dominating the Health Social Networks vertical? I’m not sure. I think MedHelp are bigger and I also think MDJunction is about the same size, one thing is for sure: DailyStrength is big and powerful.
One last note: two weeks ago I wrote a post about DailyStrengths’ financial problems. Some people wrote me to say that I was just trying to harm DS – this was not the case, I love the site ( I would like to interview them soon) and I wish with all my heart for them to find additional funding and to continue to grow so fast. I just found out the news and thought I needed to share it.
Peace & Love to you all, Sam.

Will OrganizedWisdom change the world?

2008-08-11T10:36:00.000-07:00

OrganizedWisdom is indeed an organization bursting with wisdom.

Health Social Networks started appearing in 2006 when 3-4 sites pioneered the vertical with a lot of PR. OrganizedWisdom was one of them. Despite the fact that they launched with the wisdom cards already at the front it was really hard to understand what OW was all about, especially because it was mostly a social network and how does a wisdom card relate to social??

Only a year later that I fully understood OrganizedWisdom, it happened when they rebranded the site to social search – now wisdom cards make sense.

Did they plan on doing it this way? I don’t really think so. I believe it was a real time change adapting to the market that became a bit too busy. I love companies that know how to do that.

Today OrganizedWisdom is both the leading search engine in the health vertical and also a great company run by veteran entrepreneurs (I hope to have an email interview with them soon) relaying on the very popular work-from-home concept. People write wisdom card from home (social), Drs verify the cards from home. They maintain a forum to support the work on the wisdom cards (as apposed to the other sites on our list that do it for the patients) and manage to grow so nicely without the overheads of a large office and crew. Managing this sort of operation and doing it so nicely is something to be proud of.

And the real life tests:

I started off by searching for bipolar disorder as this is something I know about.

Auto-complete saved me from typing the whole thing (it was the first option after typing bipo) – I know its nothing special but I love that ;-).

I got the Bipolar Wisdom Card which is managed by Chris Miller. Don’t know who Chris is but she knows a lot about a lot of things (more than 100 wisdom cards on different topics and areas).

The page starts off with a short description about the disorder followed by a few facts. I even learned that some people may be categorized as having bipolar NOS - Not Otherwise Specified, I wouldn’t leave the doctors office if he told me that). I did some checking to find out it was taken from wikipedia, too bad there was no mentioning or credit for it on the page.

The page continues with news, more resources, symptoms, causes, treatments and more.

All in all the card is full of knowledge and resources and would be a great place to start if I were writing a school paper, it lacks some personal touch that a bipolar patient would definitely be looking for.

Second test, Complete Blood Count. Lets say I just got the test results and wanted to know what my status is:

This time the card was BINGO!

Short description was accurate.

The card contained all the links a person needs to find out everything about his blood count.

It would have been nice to have the different measures on page but having all the resources listed is good enough.

Final words

The Good:

Great company with a great website
Unique and powerful solution.
Your source for health related resources.

The Bad:

Missing some personal touch.
paying for content is not really social networking
wikipedia

and to the question in the title: NO

I don’t think OW will change the world, but its here to stay and I love them for it!

Is DailyStrength in trouble ???

2008-08-06T01:42:00.000-07:00

OK guys I’m not sure if this is what I think it is but….

I was doing a little research on some of the companies we listed on our List Of Social Networks when I came across a blog named rdmey by a senior web developer who’s been working for DailyStrength for the past 6 months. And this is what I found in her latest post - http://blog.rebeccamurphey.com/2008/08/02/web-developer-hiring-tips/ :
“A couple of weeks ago, I got the call: my employer was laying everyone off while they continued their search for funding. It wasn't entirely unexpected -- in this case, no news started to seem like bad news as the weeks ticked by”

If that means what I think it does, we are seeing the first major site in the Health Social Networks niche to be effected by the recession. DS spent a lot of $$ over the last couple of years (anyone say bubble?) on building a strong team to win the race. I’ve got to say that if this news is true – I am amazed. According to their early 2007 press release DS raised $5-7 Million from RedPoint, all gone ???

I would hate to see DS disappear. It’s a great site with a great future and what does it say about the other companies on our Health Social Networks list? Will MDJunction and MedHelp be the next to feel it? (they are the next biggest Health Communities on our list).

I’ll try and get more info to you soon.

Social Networks for Pets the next big thing?

2008-08-04T21:57:00.001-07:00

TechCrunch wrote a review on WebVet - WebVet, The “WebMD for Pets”, Launches it seems that they already have 3 competitors and my guess that we'll be seeing a few more soon.
will they have 20 different competitors (like our list of Social Networks) in one year??

maybe i need to change my blog theme? ;-)

List of Health Social Networks

2008-08-03T18:21:00.000-07:00

List of Health Social Networks

Let’s start talking business. The following is the first list I publish for the websites I think belong to the Health Social Networks vertical. I broke the list down to 3 categories: General Communities, Cause Specific Communities, and Search Engines. I’m leaving out all the ‘market places’, ‘for doctors’ and ‘rate your doctor’ sites for now.

General Communities

Daily Strength

MDJunction
MedHelp
HopeCube

Cause Specific Communities

I’m Too Young for This

SugarStats
TuDiabetes

Search Engines

Healia
iMedix

I’m looking to expend the list – please let me know!!

reference from these posts:

http://seedsofgrowth.com/health-related-social-networking-sites

http://www.experientia.com/blog/health-related-social-networking-sites/

http://www.iftf.org/node/2162

Health Communities? Who cares?

2008-08-02T13:10:00.000-07:00

Websites for health information were the first large scale niche sites on the internet (yehh – even porn came later), when eCommerce became public domain health products were the first to be sold (high price, low weight – great internet combination), spam and health we all know (my Dad still looks at me with a very confused face when he's saying "I really don't need V_____, why do they send it to me all the time').

It's only natural that in the age of the everything2.0 the old health forums and new entrepreneurs are seeking to become a Health Community. Cause that sounds so much better !!! ;-)

But to be serious (hell - I'm dedicating my whole blog for this) I truly believe that Health Social Networks are the next big thing and will stay here for long (not all of them, just the good ones) and even more – I believe with all my heart that if we learn to use them wisely and they evolve correctly WE WILL BETTER OUR LIVES.

How does a website qualify to be a Health Social Network?

Don't think there is an answer to this. If you combine some sort of a community, your content is user generated and you're all about health – we have a match!

Who Cares?

I think we all should.

Social Networks for Health are all welcome !

2008-07-29T18:40:00.000-07:00

It is my intent to write and update about all things related to the Health Social Network niche.
If you know a website in the vertical, want to let the world know about your won social network or just have some news regarding one of them.
please let me know!

FEEDBACK
IDEAS
ARTICLE SUGGESTIONS

welcome!

you can contact me at a gmail account with the name of my blog (in one word, no lines or spaces)

Disclaimer for the Health Social Networks Blog

2008-07-25T14:44:00.000-07:00

The Health Social Networks Blog is dedicated to covering the companies and technologies in the Health Social Networks Vertical.

All things written in the Health Social Networks Blog are the opinions and point of views of the Health Social Networks Blog and should be regarded as such (fictional, hallucinations etc’).

The Health Social Networks Blog will not cure you of anything (possibly boredom) and does not possess the answer for your health problems.

Reviews of companies working in this vertical are strictly our thoughts put on paper (blogger).

The only health advice you’ll ever get at the Health Social Networks Blog is to keep smiling.