Written on 11th June 2009
1 COMMENT Martin Bryant, Co-founder, Social Media Café Manchester
It seems an age since they launched at last year’s TechCrunch50 event but finally Fitbit are almost ready to release their personal online fitness tracking service to the public.
For $99, Fitbit will sell you an electronic tracker that you keep with you at all times. The tracker keeps a record of everything from the calories you’ve burned and the steps taken through to the number of times you woke up in the night.
The data is then uploaded over wifi to the Fitbit website which tracks your health via graphs that can be shared with friends if you choose. The data can be used to help you track your eating, weight or physical activity.
Written on 19th February 2009
12 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
In an article published in the journal of the Instiitute of Biology, Psychologist Dr Aric Sigman has been quoted as saying social networking sites are harmful to our health and could eventually lead to serious health problems such as cancer, strokes, heart disease, and dementia.
Dr Sigman believes although these sites set out to improve human connectivity – they are in fact doing the opposite and ensuring lack of face-to-face contact. There is scientific evidence that suggests this lack of contact can alter the way genes work, negatively affect immune responses, cause imbalanced hormone levels and have a direct impact on mental performance.
Dr Sigman also argues using electronic media undermines people’s social skills and their ability to read body language.
“One of the most pronounced changes in the daily habits of British citizens is a reduction in the number of minutes per day that they interact with another human being…In less than two decades, the number of people saying there is no-one with whom they discuss important matters nearly tripled.” Said Dr Sigman
A concerned Dr Sigman discussed the claims in an interview with the BBC, a portion of which can be heard above.
The last couple of months, quite a large number of medical/ health start-ups have emerged. These sites are not without controversy. The following conversation about ZocDoc, covered by my co-editor Boris at TechCrunch 40, says it all:
Guy Kawasaki, who was one of the members of the jury, said ‘I just don’t see it. You search this site and you’re like, “Oh look, Dr. Molly Adams, she looks nice, I’ll ask her to operate on my heart.”‘. While the audience laughed ZocDoc founder Massoumi cleared his throat, grabbed the microphone and replied ‘You might ask your friend for an optometrist recommendation, but you might not ask them for someone who could diagnose the rash on your butt.”.
Massoumi could be right when he thinks health sites will be successful. Since even Google launched its own version in February, called Google Health. You can store and manage all your medical information on this site (This freaks me out by the way, what if Google suspends my account or something like that?).
Several start-ups profit from this move by Google. Like San-Francisco based MEDgle, a site where you can search through 10,000 symptoms and more than 2000 diagnoses. Just click the body part that’s bothering you and start browsing away to find a solution. MEDgle founder Ash Damle explains how Google Health helps them: “Google Health is a good opportunity for us. MEDgle was designed to be able to run on top of medical health records. Google Health now provides a platform for this. They have the data, we can make it actionable and relevant to the user.”
So the self-funded start-ups basically puts an accessible layer over the Google Health data. Users select the body part and the symptom, and then specify their gender and age. After hitting the search button, a page with a short description about the symptom and external links appear. A nice touch to this page is that users can rate those external links.
There seems to be a rather large demand for medical search engines like MEDgle. A recent study by Comscore showed that 60% of women looking for information about birth control turn to the Internet. Damle notices the demand when looking at the MEDgle traffic: “We opened the doors in June of last year. Last month we had around 500K page views. All the traffic has been organic to date.”
The French National Assembly adopted a bill last week that would make anorexia promoting publications illegal. Anyone who “incites” extreme thinness on websites, magazines, and in advertisements risks a punishment of up to three years in jail and 30,000 euros fines. The main purpose of the new measure seems to outlaw the French pro-anorexia web sites.
On pages like these, girls advice other girls how to get super – and dangerously – thin. Pictures of ultra-skinny stars like Kate Moss, Nicole Richie, the Olsen Twins, and Keira Knightley dominate the sites’ design. “There has been an explosion of these sites over the past year. They offer morbid advice to young girls on how to lie to their parents. It’s mental manipulation,” said right-wing deputy and author of the bill Valery Boyer to Agence France Press (AFP).
This revolutionary law has stirred quite a heavy debate in France. Socialists and the intelligentsia blame the right-wing parties for overseeing the problems. “In France, we know how to punish, we know how to treat, but we don’t seem to know much about prevention,” said psychiatrist Sophie Criquillion-Doublet to AFP. Next week, the law goes to the Senate, that will judge whether the law will be finally approved or not.
I think the law won’t hurt anyone, and might make the sites less accessible for young French girls. The fanatic pro-anorexia girls will find the international sites, forums and groups though. History has shown that effectively preventing certain content from the web is nearly impossible since it always finds its way to the audience. Therefore the law should just be seen as a statement and not so much as the end of the French pro-anorexia movement.
At Techcrunch40 we watched a presentation (Follow that link for video) by ZocDoc co-founder Cyrus Massoumi. ZocDoc is an online service that lets consumers find, search and book dentist and doctor appointments. After Massoumi’s presentation Guy Kawasaki, who was one of the members of the jury, said ‘I just don’t see it. You search this site and you’re like, “Oh look, Dr. Molly Adams, she looks nice, I’ll ask her to operate on my heart.”‘. While the audience laughed Massoumi cleared his throat, grabbed the microphone and replied ‘You might ask your friend for an optometrist recommendation, but you might not ask them for someone who could diagnose the rash on your butt.”. I don’t really know why but there has been some animosity between Jason Calacanis, who was the moderator for Techcrunch40 and Kawasaki. So the crowd went wild when Kawasaki said “Sure I would. I’d call Jason (Calacanis); he’s had plenty of rashes”.
“I’d call Jason Calacanis; he’s had plenty of rashes”
Kawasaki, as you might know, is a man and not a female and that might have some influence on his opinions. Maybe. If he would have been a female there would have been a 60 percent chance he would prefer the Internet over friends, family or significant other to get medical advice. I didn’t just make that up either. Comscore asked 921 women between the ages of 18 and 44 how they choose their methods of birth control. Turns out that 82% turn to Medical Professionals (i.e. doctors, pharmacists and healthcare workers) but 60% also turns to the internet. Apparently women use all sorts of sources because 51% also asks their friends, family or significant other. Good to know that men (significant others?) are in the loop too when it concerns methods of birth control.
I hope Comscore will repeat this study with men soon so we can accurately determine if there is a future for web-based services that allow you to get medical advice via online services like via ZocDoc or the just announced and soon to launch Google Health. In case you missed it; Google announced last week that they will soon launch Google Health which will enable you to build online health profiles that belong to you, download medical records from doctors and pharmacies, get personalized health guidance and relevant news, find qualified doctors and connect to time-saving services and share selected information with family or caregiver.
Some people freaked when Google launched Gmail saying that it would mean Google would know almost everything about you once they could read your email. I hope these same people will post a few comments here with their opinions on Google Health.
Every once in a while something good springs up, and anything that can help save people from the ravages of ill health would get my vote. So I’m imagining the CEO of Mamaherb Elad Daniel standing in front of the vultures that make up the panel on Dragons Den, making his pitch for their investment (luckly Mamaherb is not looking for finance so Elad Daniel is safe for now). But what would they make of this venture?
Mamaherb is a very well built web2.0 style application that intends to gather feedback from users regarding alternative natural treatments for ailments. So if you have used cats claw (a herb) to cure your chronic infection, they want to know about it so they can spread the word.
See the problem they are trying to address is that the conventional health system only promotes allopathic remedies, and as such the hundreds of thousands of natural health advisers work outside this system which also goes to great lengths to diminish the value of their natural un-patentable products.
There are hardly any clinical trials involving such treatments because the costs cannot be recouped by pharmaceutical companies who have a close relationship with the FDA, and the FDA is the bogie man according to your natural heath adviser. I think it’s safe to say there is no love lost between these two competing groups. (more…)
Written on 11th June 2009
1 COMMENT 
It seems an age since they launched at last year’s TechCrunch50 event but finally Fitbit are almost ready to release their personal online fitness tracking service to the public.
Written on 19th February 2009
In an article published in the journal of the Instiitute of Biology, Psychologist Dr Aric Sigman has been quoted as saying social networking sites are harmful to our health and could eventually lead to serious health problems such as cancer, strokes, heart disease, and dementia.
Written on 20th August 2008
Written on 29th January 2008
Written on 16th January 2008
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show off, the future of the Web. (More info 
