Future Now
The IFTF Blog
Online health keeps growing and growing
Silicon Valley entrepreneur and blogger Sramana Mitra had an informative post today entitled "Web 3.0 & Online Health (Part 2)."*
In it, she provides a summary of data from a recent comScore Media Metrix survey of the rising demand for health portals. WebMD is by far the leading source for health information online, with 17.1 million average monthly unique visitors (amuvs) in Q1 2007; NIH.gov was second with 9.8 million amuvs. The more interesting story is the percentage of increase in use of health-related sites. Healthline.com grew 269%; Yahoo! Health grew 83%.
Mitra goes on to note the following trends: online health sites are shifting from the mass to the niche; social networking sites like PatientsLikeMe and DailyStrength are becoming increasingly popular; and vertical meta search engines sites are emerging.
I think it is safe to say that my colleagues here in the Health Horizons Program would agree with Mitra's observation that, "The increase in the number of health portals and the growing popularity of health verticals can be directly linked to the increasing health consciousness and specific user needs."
*You may be wondering about Part 1 of Mitra's blog. It recaps the data on how and why Internet users use online health sites.
You may also be wondering about the reference to Web3.0, which Mitra introduced in a post earlier this year. She offers a formula to explain how the Web is being used differently these days:
Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS)
in which 3C = Content, Commerce, Community | 4th C = Context | P = Personalization | VS = Vertical Search.
Some new math, eh?