The Health-Focused Social Network Can Transform Health Care

There's lots of buzz about Internet social networking these days.  And for good reason.

Sites like MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, Bebo, Xanga, LinkedIn are hugely popular among consumers (without a dime spent on advertising MySpace reports nearly 100,000,000 members with half a million more signing up each day!) and these businesses are making a real impact. Social Networks are changing the way people get and share information.  The way businesses, groups and organizations market their brands.  And how millions of us interact and connect on a daily basis. 

Even though social networking sites have been around for years (the first social networking website was Classmates.com, which began in 1995. Other sites followed, including SixDegrees.com, which began in 1997), the real impact of social networks is just beginning to take shape.  So much so that marketers are finally beginning to take notice: eMarketer analysts report social networks' online ad revenues will near $2 Billion in 2010.

And this is just the beginning.  That's because we are about to see a rise in niche-focused social networking sites.  LinkedIn is an already well established example focused on linking business executives.  And breakaway success stories like Flickr, the photo sharing site, has millions of users and was recently acquired by Yahoo!.  There are also a new crop of sites like Minti.com, a parenting focused social network, that are proving the power of these niche focused communities.

The Health-Focused Social Network Can Transform Health Care

In early August we will unveil to the public the first Web 2.0 health-focused social networking site called OrganizedWisdom.com.  Our goal is to enhance professional medical content by providing experienced consumers, medical professionals, health organizations and the health industry a powerful social networking platform to collaborate and share better health information. 

The health-focused social network can change health care because of its ability to efficiently connect those in need with those who can help. The social network will offer a more efficient channel for information distribution and make it possible for the first time for collaboration to happen on a mass scale between consumers, medical professionals, organizations, health care providers and the health industry.

While the government bureaucracy trudges along and many health companies struggle to figure out how best to get involved with the Internet, our goal is to focus on providing the public, health professionals, and the health industry with a more efficient system to connect, collaborate and share educational information.  There is a lot of fear from lawyers these days about user generated content and of losing control in general.  But we feel this is a powerful opportunity for all of us, including the health care businesses, and the best way to combat these fears is to get involved, participate, and find solutions for the benefit of the public good. 

By embracing these technologies to better connect those in need of health information with those who have experience, wisdom and information to share, we believe we can help millions of people.

We look forward to building out this health focused social network with your help over the coming months and years.  And to working together to transform health care for us all.