We have video sites, search sites, social networks and probably a few other categories in an increasingly crowded health 2.0 space. From where I stand, there is room and need for such services sites, but just like in the tech industry a shake up is bound to happen at some point. There is only so many companies/services consumers need. The latest kid on the block is iMedix, an Israeli healthcare “social search” engine that was profiled on TechCrunch. The company has raised $2 million in angel funding, which is quite a decent amount.
iMedix, at least on the surface, is a well designed site. Their about page tells you a little more about their goals
iMedix is a free website that helps you find and share health information.
At iMedix, you are not alone, coping with fear and confusion regarding your medical condition. Whether you’re looking for symptoms, diseases, treatments, or simply general health information, you will be searching together with many other people. Members of the iMedix community assist each other by sharing their experiences and ranking medical content in order to make health information personal, organized and accessible to any individual.
As you search, iMedix will find for you:
1. Comprehensive health information from the top sources across the web.
2. People who would like to discuss and share similar health experiences with you.
The more people use it – the better it gets
iMedix’s technology was designed with one goal in mind: “The more people use it – the better it gets”.
The system constantly studies users’ feedbacks and improves search results. All you have to do is indicate that you found a certain article relevant or irrelevant to your query. You will soon notice that the system gets better every day…
Obviously they want to harness network effects, aka the “social graph” (the current phrase du jour).
A search for “Asthma” pulls in information from WebMD, the Mayo clinic, etc in the main window. In the sidebar, profiles of users who are online and happy to chat with you are pulled up. I am not sure if this is always real time or offline as well, but I suspect its both. For some users the live chat might be a little too much, and there is scope for gaming/fraud, but in general, from my experiences seeing people with severe or particularly chronic illnesses, having someone to chat with who shares the experience can mean a lot. There is also a Digg like voting system on the search results and an activity rank for the users.
The site is intriguing enough that I might try it out. Being in the biosciences one tends to get an “I am sure I can figure this out” attitude, so thus far I have only really used the occasional healthcare search engine, but not too much else. Note that you can search iMedix without signing up, but the differentiation lies on the networking side.
I, um, had a somewht different take on iMedix, which struck me as kind of clunky -- the search really doesn't work well at the moment, and the history of user-graded search hasn't been a particularly happy one so far -- and a bit on the creepy side as well. It'll be interesting to watch it grow, but I can't help wondering if there's a serious generational divide that's going to limit its popularity, since after all it's older people who tend to get sick more often.
I read your review. I won't be surprised if there is a generational divide, esp in the social networking apects (probably depends on how they are presented). What I did really like about the site was the relative sparse design, and the search, which you probably put through the works a little more than I did. I recorded a quick screencast, which you can find here
Your personal health: The healthcare social graph
We have video sites, search sites, social networks and probably a few other categories in an increasingly crowded health 2.0 space. From where I stand, there is room and need for such services sites, but just like in the tech industry a shake up is bound to happen at some point. There is only so many companies/services consumers need. The latest kid on the block is iMedix, an Israeli healthcare “social search” engine that was profiled on TechCrunch. The company has raised $2 million in angel funding, which is quite a decent amount.
iMedix, at least on the surface, is a well designed site. Their about page tells you a little more about their goals
Obviously they want to harness network effects, aka the “social graph” (the current phrase du jour).
A search for “Asthma” pulls in information from WebMD, the Mayo clinic, etc in the main window. In the sidebar, profiles of users who are online and happy to chat with you are pulled up. I am not sure if this is always real time or offline as well, but I suspect its both. For some users the live chat might be a little too much, and there is scope for gaming/fraud, but in general, from my experiences seeing people with severe or particularly chronic illnesses, having someone to chat with who shares the experience can mean a lot. There is also a Digg like voting system on the search results and an activity rank for the users.
The site is intriguing enough that I might try it out. Being in the biosciences one tends to get an “I am sure I can figure this out” attitude, so thus far I have only really used the occasional healthcare search engine, but not too much else. Note that you can search iMedix without signing up, but the differentiation lies on the networking side.
Further reading
Alt search engines
Technorati Tags: iMedix, Healthcare, Search, Social Networking