OrganizedWisdom Health Blog

Steven Krein Interview at Health 2.0

Health 2.0 Opening Video from ScribeMedia

The folks who produce the Digital Health Revolution over at ScribeMedia created a well done video titled the History of Medicine to help kick of yesterday's Health 2.0 conference in San Fransisco.

Click here to check it out.

We've heard that there will be a number of segments and interviews from the conference that will be coming soon...

The Health Care Blog Liveblogging Health 2.0 Conference

Liveblogging here: http://www.thehealthcareblog.com/the_health_care_blog/

Here's the post abut the social media panel OrganizedWisdom participated on.

And here's another take on the session from Francine Hardaway's Blog.

For more live blogging from the event check out health blogger Bob Coffield's posts here.

And, better yet, you can watch video of panel discussions and interviews here.

Health 2.0 Conference

I'm sitting here at the Health 2.0 conference and it's amazing to see how far the industry has come in 1 year. When we first launched OrganizedWisdom we were teaching everyone what this whole space is about and how we're going change healthcare 1 day at a time. First panel is the big guys (Google, Yahoo, WebMD and Microsoft). I'm itching to get to the panels where we'll see where the real innovation is going to come from.

Should be an interesting day. My panel and my demo is at 11:15. If you're here, make sure to introduce yourself. It's a huge room so if you're facing the stage, I'm at about 3 o'clock.

See You At Health 2.0 in San Francisco

Steven Krein will be presenting the new OrganizedWisdom tomorrow for the first time at the Health 2.0 conference.  He's just finished up a bunch of meetings at the TechCrunch 40 event, and is on Sand Hill Road now in a a bunch of other meetings we're pretty excited about.

We've gotten a lot of interesting feedback about our new site and some great questions and comments.

One of the biggest questions we've been getting is: Why did we decide to evolve our model so much over the past year and a half?

We'll be blogging a lot about this in the coming weeks, because we hope our insights will be useful to other entrepreneurs and others in the Health 2.0 space.

We have some amazing lessons learned about what has worked really well and what hasn't worked so well, and we'll be sharing them on this blog as things settle down a bit and we get a minute to breathe.

In the meantime, if you happen to be at the Health 2.0 conference please stop by and say hi to Steve.  We want to hear what you have to say, get your feedback, and find out how we can work together.

90% of Women Use Internet to Search for Health Info

There's another interesting survey  from Burst Media which tells us more of what we already know:

People are going to the Internet first to search for health information.

In fact, the research shows that the internet - rather than healthcare professionals - is now by far US households' main source for healthcare information, and women more frequently than men seek such information.

Click here to get a lot more of the statistics from the report.

So we know people are going to the Internet to search for health information first.  But, are they finding what they want and is the information they are finding credible, trustworthy, and useful? 

For those who are adept at searching online, we suspect that they are eventually finding great information.  That's because there is so much great health information available online now.  There's also a lot of wisdom and practical advice from patients and ordinary people with experience. 

But from our experience this information is becoming increasingly more difficult to find.  We know because that's what our health guides do all day -- they search for the very best health content, resources, and wisdom to find the very best stuff.  The challenge is, it can take hours to wade through hundreds of links to find the very best message board on a topic.  Or to discern if a blog post is from a credible source or not.  Or to search page after page of search results only to get links to the very same content, but on a different Web site.

The good news is that there are now really great health resources online.  Most of them freely accessible and many that have been reviewed by physicians.  The key is finding the best stuff.

We're now creating WisdomCards, or search results pages, for hundreds of the most popular health topics.  We're trying to do the work for you, and clean up a lot of the clutter along the way.

Here's an example of a WisdomCard we have created on the topic of Breast Cancer.

Here's the same search on Google:

And on Technorati.

We'd love your feedback on which one you would want to send your family to and why or why not?

With so many people now turning to the Internet first, it's essential to clean up health search and give people great, organized results.

OrganizedWisdom Unveils the World's First Human-Powered, Doctor-Guided Search Service for Health

New Health Search Engine Weeds out Spam Sites, Redundant Links and Clutter by Using People to Find and Organize the Best Health Resources on the Web

New York, NY - Monday, September 17, 2007 – OrganizedWisdom, LLC, a leader in the Health 2.0 movement, today unveiled its new web search platform and launched OrganizedWisdom Health, the first human-powered, doctor-guided search service for health.

Launching in beta for early user feedback, the new site at OrganizedWisdom.com features a custom health search engine curated by trained search experts and guided by a team of specialized physicians. The service provides credible, well-organized search results pages for the most popular health search terms, without the clutter, redundant links or index spam typically found in search engines.

When you search for topics such as weight loss, melanoma or hair loss on OrganizedWisdom Health, human editors have assembled an organized page for each topic, called a WisdomCard™. Only quality links to expert and user-generated content are listed, without the clutter you often see in search results at Google or Technorati that are often marketing sites trying to sell products or spam sites masquerading as authentic blogs.

“No other search engine has physicians guiding every search result to provide an additional level of quality review,” said Howard Krein, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Medical Officer of OrganizedWisdom Health. “Machine-generated results like Google's or Technorati's change by the minute and are easily manipulated by search index spammers so it’s impossible to nail down something to review. With humans hand-crafting the results, we can do that. Each and every WisdomCard has been reviewed thoroughly by two different Health editors and at least one physician.”

“The goal of OrganizedWisdom Health is to provide the best search service in the world for health by hand-crafting search results that physicians and consumers will recommend to their family and friends,” said Steven Krein, co-founder and CEO of OrganizedWisdom.

OrganizedWisdom Health is focused on creating WisdomCards for the top search terms and phrases for health including diseases, conditions, treatments and drugs. The site is launching with WisdomCards on more than 100 of the most popular health topics, with plans to create 10,000 WisdomCards over the next 12 months. OrganizedWisdom editors have also built into the service a customized version of Google, which only includes approved sites, ensuring that every query on OrganizedWisdom Health delivers spam-free search results.

“OrganizedWisdom Health also taps into the wisdom of our site visitors to help improve the results,” said Unity Stoakes, president and co-founder of OrganizedWisdom. “Anyone can suggest links they feel are missing and deserve to be included on a WisdomCard, and can report or discuss any links they feel should be removed. Each suggestion is reviewed and monitored by our guides to ensure that only quality links are added to the search results themselves.”

Last year Krein and Stoakes, both serial entrepreneurs, launched OrganizedWisdom as a destination site for sharing health wisdom. They quickly discovered, however, that there was plenty of user-generated health information already online, but easily finding that useful information was the real problem. The duo dramatically transformed their strategy to solve this problem.

Krein co-founded Internet marketing firm Promotions.com in 1996, and with Stoakes took it to an IPO in 1999, followed by a sale to iVillage in 2002. Stoakes was the Chief Marketing Officer at Promotions.com and the VP of Marketing at The Privacy Council.

ABOUT ORGANIZEDWISDOM HEALTH

OrganizedWisdom® Health is the first human-powered, doctor-guided search service for health. The site at http://organizedwisdom.com provides reviewed, well-organized search result pages called WisdomCards™, for the most popular health search terms and phrases without the clutter, redundant links or index spam typically found in search engines. OrganizedWisdom helped ignite the Health 2.0 revolution with several “firsts” including the first company to assemble a team of health guides and physicians to organize the world’s best health wisdom from across the Web. Today, OrganizedWisdom continues to bring innovation to online health care by leveraging social media and the power of collaboration technologies to improve the quality of health search. OrganizedWisdom is based in New York City and was founded in 2006 by serial entrepreneurs Steven Krein and Unity Stoakes, who have worked together building companies since 1997.

eMarketer Says Pharma Failing at Web 2.0

In case you didn't see this research from eMarketer:

DESPITE ACCOUNTING FOR AN EVER-INCREASING share of online ad spending, the pharmaceutical industry is still failing to embrace the Web 2.0 strategies that could help it better engage consumers looking for health care assistance, according to eMarketer research.

The new study, "Pharmaceutical Marketing Online: Stuck in Web 1.5," projected that the pharmaceutical category--which includes hospitals, drug companies and other health care services--will account for 5% of Internet advertising by 2011, or $2.2 billion. Last year the industry was responsible for $820 million, or 4.9%, and is on track to ring in $975 million this year, or 4.5% of total Web spend.

But most of that money is still going to traditional Web 1.0 ventures that provide only limited interactions with users. "[By] restricting their brand sites to simple online information centers, pharma marketers are missing opportunities to engage consumers and boost compliance," the study said.

The study's author, eMarketer senior analyst Lisa Phillips, said Pharma's slow adoption of Web 2.0 strategies like blogs, social networks and broadband video can be attributed to its conservative approach to advertising in general and to government restrictions.

Read the full article at Online Media Daily here.

If Google Buys Web MD...

So there's lots more gossip flying around about the potential of Google acquiring WebMD.

This would be interesting for several reasons.

1) It would indicate that Google has plans to become much more of a content, publishing company (ala Yahoo!) than sticking to its core focus of organizing the world's information.

2) It would likely mean that Google really didn't have any other health initiatives going on after all, or the ones they did have in the works internally never got off the ground.

3) It would create a massive opportunity for other health care companies and start-ups because Yahoo!, Microsoft, and others would be hungry to keep up.

Regardless, there is no doubt that September is proving to be a very big news month for online health care and I suspect the rest of the year will only heat up.

Google Health Executive Adam Bosworth Leaves, Heavyweight Marissa Mayer Takes the Helm

Google's health initiatives have been a mystery for many months now.  That's because they keep talking about the importance of organizing health information, but to date we haven't seen any major new products launch or acquisitions take place. 

So what does this week's news that effective immediately, Google exec Adam Bosworth has left the company, mean to the future of Google Health?

For starters Google's head of the core search group, Marissa Mayer will (at least temporarily) take the helm. Which is probably a good sign since she is one of the most influential and important executives on the Google team. The company is clearly taking this change seriously, whether Bosworth's exit was expected or not. 

In our opinion, having Google in the game promoting innovation in health care is a great thing.  They have the talent and deep pockets to promote great ideas, entrepreneurs, and new companies. This is not only a great thing for their company, but also for others in the burgeoning Health 2.0 space because we all benefit when we are propelling each other forward.

Having Google paying attention to health care innovation is also critical to health searchers. With so many people starting their search at Google now, it is essential that visitors get credible, quality search results. 

As we have blogged about extensively about this trend (here, here, here), because the quality of search from resources like Google is now in shambles.  Spammers, clutter, and marketers are really taking a toll on the quality of their search results, especially in the area of health.

We hope and look forward to Google continuing to innovate in health care and support other companies that are working hard to find better ways to solve these same challenges.