Slowly but surely the tide is turning. Via Shahid Shah, I learnt about peerclip, a social bookmarking tool targeted at physicians. One might ask what the advantage of a vertical social bookmarking tool might be, but as someone who uses both del.icio.us and connotea, I can appreciate the need for more specific bookmarking tools that are less general than something like del.icio.us (still my favorite web 2.0 resource).
peerclip is invitation only at this time, and a private community. I am still trying to get my head around the latter, but I think for physicians to go to a public site would be quite hard, at least in the beginning. Shahid’s review seems to be a pretty good one.
peerclip is a ConnectivHealth company. From the ConnectivHealth site, it looks like peerclip is scheduled to be released at the Health 2.0 conference
Technorati Tags: Social Bookmarking, Healthcare, Physicians
6 Comments
One of the best ideas, really, social network for physicians. Just that..are you sure they spend time on social networks?
One of the best ideas, really, social network for physicians. Just that..are you sure they spend time on social networks?
I don’t believe anyone used the word “best”. It is however a very good idea. One reason I didn’t use the word social network, is that social bookmarking is, at least to me, a specific subset. It has proved invaluable to me as a scientists and for market research. I can keep track of both my own research and bookmarks from others.
I am pretty sure that the majority of physicians are not taking advantage of social bookmarking and other resources to stay abreast of the latest developments in the field. Some are, and I know a few, but more should. It works.
What I don’t like about this fragmentation (specialization) is that these social sites work better the more people participate in them. So, the more fragmented the space the harder it will become to reach interesting levels of users. In all these social sites it would be best if the underlying important material would be shared, accessible to any other site. The competition between the sites could be on the user interface and not so much on who has the most tagged material or largest social network etc. I guess in tagging there are clear advantages to specialization. I don’t want to go through all material in delicious if I am looking for new papers for example.
Pedro
Absolutely, there has to be a core number of users for a service like peerclip to be useful and the ability to take advantage such a resource. To me, its another example of the long tail, where if there is a niche with sufficient user interest, a useful service can be established. The devil lies in the implementation and whether that critical mass can be reached.
One of the reasons I keep Connotea and del.icio.us separate is how I use them, and it works. I think in the medical/healthcare space, there is definitely a case to be made for a dedicated resource or two or three, but probably not for more, at least not in the non-consumer space
Pedro
Absolutely, there has to be a core number of users for a service like peerclip to be useful and the ability to take advantage such a resource. To me, its another example of the long tail, where if there is a niche with sufficient user interest, a useful service can be established. The devil lies in the implementation and whether that critical mass can be reached.
One of the reasons I keep Connotea and del.icio.us separate is how I use them, and it works. I think in the medical/healthcare space, there is definitely a case to be made for a dedicated resource or two or three, but probably not for more, at least not in the non-consumer space
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