OrganizedWisdom Health Blog

A Community for Everyone: The Rise of the Niche-Focused Social Network

Social networking sites like MySpace, Bebo, and Facebook continue to spread like wildfire as millions of people join these communities to connect, create and share every month.  (MySpace alone already has over 100,000,000 users and grows at a clip of more than 250,000 new members a day!)

While these powerhouse networks continue to capture mainstream media attention, there is a new crop of social networks surfacing (and providing great value to their respective communities) signaling an important new trend: the rise of niche-focused social networks. 

Our own social network, OrganizedWisdom.com, (currently in private beta...so please contact us if you want to help test and give feedback) is a health-focused community making it easy for consumers, physicians, healthcare professionals, and health organizations to collaborate, connect, and share wisdom on more than 6,500 health topics.  We're getting close to public launch in the next few weeks and we can't wait to share it with you.

Taking a brief break from our own site testing, we thought we would share a few links to some of the other interesting niche-focused social networks that aim to change the way you do everything from lose weight to seek parenting advice. 

In the about to explode health and wellness sector alone, each of these communities is targeting a different market segment and topic focus:

Eons.com - A social network for baby-boomer's.

Traineo.com - A weight loss community.

Minti.com - Community networking and advice for parents.

MyMedwork.com - A closed social network for physicians.

Have you seen any other great social networks helping people with health and wellness related issues?  Let us know in the comments section...

And we can't wait to show you the first "health-focused social network, easy enough for mom and dad to use" in a few short weeks...

New Report Shows Direct-to-Patient Becomes a Reality

A new report from eMarketer analyzes the quickly evolving world of pharma marketing — driven by changes in consumer behavior and attitudes towards healthcare — is rapidly changing direction and tactics. 

As marketers shift from consumer mass marketing to more targeted opportunities on the Internet, eMarketer projects pharmaceutical companies' Internet spending will increase nearly 25% this year, to $780 million, and perhaps more importantly the ability to build a direct relationship with patients is now becoming a reality.

For over 30 million Americans, the Internet is the first place they turn for health care information. In fact, nearly 100 million Americans used the Internet to find health information in just the past 12 months. With so many customers interested in so many different health topics, instead of merely advertising blockbuster drugs, the industry is beginning to chase the "long tail."

Number of Adults Who Have Ever Gone Online for Health Information Increases to an Estimated 136 Million Nationwide

According to a new ongoing poll from Harris Interactive, searching the Internet for health care information has become more widespread in the past year after three years of little growth.

Use of the Internet to search for health-related information by online U.S. adults has increased markedly both in terms of percentages (from 72% in 2005 to 80% now) and in numbers. This brings the number of all U.S. adults who have ever searched for health information online (Harris Interactive^® refers to them as "cyberchondriacs") to 136 million, a 16 percent increase from 117 million in 2005.

Read the Press Release from Harris Interactive here.  As indicated in the release, some of key findings from the survey include:

• The number of U.S. adults who have ever gone online to look for   health or medical information has increased to approximately 136 million up   from about 117 million last year. The main reason for this increase seems to   be that the total number of Internet users has increased somewhat (from 74% of   all U.S. adults in 2004 to 77% now) and the percent of those looking for   medical information is increasing as well. Cyberchondriacs now represent 80   percent of all online adults, up substantially from last year’s 72 percent.
• Six in 10 (61%) online adults say that they have looked for information   about health topics often (21%) or sometimes (40%), a slight increase of three   percentage points from 2005 (58%).
• The percentage of online adults who say they hardly ever or never search for   health information has dropped to 39 percent, down from 43 percent last year.
• Interestingly, while three-quarters (76%) of those who have ever searched   the Internet for health information have done so one or more times in the last   month, this is down from last year when 85 percent said that they had gone   online one or more times in the past month looking for health information.
• On average, a cyberchondriac searches the Internet five times per month, a   decrease from the almost seven times per month a year ago and similar to five   times per month in 2004.
• Similar to 2005 a large majority of cyberchondriacs (88%) continues to   indicate that they were successful in searching for health information online.   Forty-two percent say that they were very successful and another 46 percent   say they were somewhat successful.
• Eighty-seven percent cyberchondriacs say that the health information they   found online has been reliable (25% "very reliable" and 61%   "somewhat reliable"). Interestingly, this has declined from 2005   when 90 percent felt this way. Of special note, the percentage of those who   indicate that online medical information is "very reliable" has   declined substantially from 37 percent in 2005 to the current 25 percent.

The 5 Trends That Will Impact Consumer Health Care Most

“The Internet has matured to a point where the millions of people seeking medical information can prepare themselves for a serious medical encounter with speed and confidence.”  So concludes Staff Writer Craig Stoltz, in his compelling article today in the Washington Post.

Read the full article here.

Mr. Stoltz walks readers through his recent real-life experience searching for health information online.  Braced for a barrage of bad information, he writes, “I was surprised to find how easy it was under real-life conditions to find credible, useful information without advanced surfing skills.” 

And that’s good news for consumers, considering (as Shultz also points out) research shows that as many as 80 percent of Internet users have searched for personal health information online. 

Shultz identified some real areas for improvement such as the ad-clutter he experienced on WebMD, and marketing links that didn’t provide quality information. But we couldn’t agree more that the easy availability of credible health information, useful search tools from companies like Google, and quality information providers like Medline-Plus are providing a critical, if not essential service to consumers.  (And perhaps we are more critical than Shultz was, but we feel that searching for health information should be even easier than it already is. See our recent post on this issue here). 

But What About The Future of Online Health?  Here’s The Top 5 Trends That We Believe Will Impact Online Health Over the Next 10 Years… 

All this reflection on the past decade (let’s call it “Online Health 1.0”) got us jazzed about what progress we can expect as a result of innovation over the next 10 years (“Online Health 2.0 and beyond”). 

What is the future of online health? What new innovations can we expect? What trends will impact the industry? And most importantly, how will the next 10 years impact consumers and provide solutions for better health? 

We’ll be writing a lot more about (and more importantly building a Company to address) these issues, but briefly here are the 5 key trends that will impact consumer health care over the next 10 years…and ultimately help all of us. 

1) Social networks will connect patients, medical professionals, health care providers, health organizations and companies like never before. These efficiencies will create better information, save time, money and hopefully lives.

2) Collaboration among consumers, medical professionals, health providers, organizations and products companies will help everyone get better information, products and services at reduced prices.   

3) User-generated content will be organized, structured, rated, reviewed, and integrated with professionally created health information to create the world’s most comprehensive health knowledgebase…one that assembles the health wisdom of crowds.   

4) New regulations will help consumers and health care providers educate each other.  Health care providers and pharmaceutical companies will be given the green light to join the dialog online as progressive government regulators, compliance officers, and lawyers will make it advisable for health care companies to participate in and join the dialog with consumers to provide their most valuable education, research and information.

5) The long-tail of health care will continue to expand as innovative companies create more profitable markets for better health information and niche focused products and services. 

We’d love to hear your thoughts about these trends, or any suggestions you have about the future of online health. Post your comments below…