Internet billionaire Steve Case is launching RevolutionHealth.com today, which will start out free but will ultimately charge $100 a year for premium services. Case said his mission is to transform a “broken industry by putting health care back into the hands of the consumer.” Also today, WebMD — the top health site on the web — is launching a new look with new features, as well as making some of its premium features fee. The online health space is becoming intensely competitive, and there are billions of dollars out there for the taking. Screen grab of RevolutionHealth below… (WSJ sub req.)
January 21st, 2007
New York, NY
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The NYT has a decent overview of the efforts by major media companies to add social networking functionality to their sites, like Disney.com, or acquire social destination sites, like Hearst’s recent acquisition of eCrush. Of couse, all this is getting more attention in the last few days now that MySpace has been hit with a lawsuit. But like I’ve written before, social networking should not be feared, and it will soon become a component of nearly all online content. Some users will want it, others won’t. But it will become a user expectation, especially in the younger set. NBC Digital’s Sab Kanaujia has a similar take, which he posted on his personal blog before it was removed a short time later. “My team at NBC Universal Digital Media is currently leading a major social networking initiative,” he writes, as quoted in Techcrunch. “(It) will provide various tools and functionality on all our major properties to enable users to self-express and find, interact and share with other like-minded users.” He continues, “We’re not launching separate stand-alone destinations. The current valuations… do not provide an attractive cost/benefit proposition for ownership.” So in short, social networking is moving away from destination to integration — a connection engine that allows interested users to communicate and share via similar content across similar networks. Isn’t that what the internet is all about?
January 21st, 2007
