Community sites are one of the most rapidly growing parts of the new web. I have been talking with a several companies who are interested in their potential for marketing and greater customer intimacy. Recently, i received an email in response to a post I did on community sites. It was from Roy Lev who is involved with MDjunction – A Healthcare Community Site inviting me to take a look. I did and it seemed interesting so I sent him a bunch of questions about the site. Roy sent back the following story that I have edited a bit but not changed the substance. I think it makes an interesting case for community sites.
The founders of MDjunction are a group of 4 friends. All are around 30 with various IT/Internet skills. They all have day jobs but MDjunction is their passion.
About a year ago, one of their mothers was diagnosed with breast cancer. They searched the internet for information, support and comfort and did not find what they looked for. There are plenty of sites that do those things, very little that do just that, and no one that does it like they thought it should be done.
MDjunction is still in its beta stages, they are trying different things, asking the community for feedback, as well as bloggers they appreciate, and it is improving all the time. The first feature they had up is "know your doctor" (like RateMDs) but it was just an anchor for the start.
Their aim, and the reason for this project, is a community, a place for people dealing with health related issues and their family/friends. They want to establish a place to share knowledge, tell your story, chat on-line, tutorials, compare treatments and medication, and most important – comfort and support with people that go through the same experiences you do.
Next month, they plan on putting up a platform for online support groups. The first group will cover breast cancer and many more will follow. The support groups, as they plan them, encapsulate all they feel about how the community should be. The support group features as well as the 'look & feel' of the support group portal, are the outcome of many meetings they have with patients, families, a psychiatrist and a psychologist specializing in group therapy.
Up till now, they have not have any legal problems. They have declared MDjunction as a platform, and as such they cannot be liable for the data posted by the community. They mention this in their TOS and emphasize that posts and articles should not be a replacement for medical diagnosis and treatments. They understand that though they ask the community to stick to the facts (for example, when writing a review on a doctor), some of the things that people write may not be 100% accurate. It's the same when you talk to your friends and family in your off-line community, and in they feel that it's part of the beauty of a community site.
They do not have a business model yet. They feel that while it may be naïve, but they truly believe that if you do something that is good and has a meaningful value to people – money would not be a problem. They are thinking of adding a healthcare price comparison tool and maybe product reviews, both are "money makers", and still have true value to their members.
"How do people find out about it?". Now they mostly rely on "Word Of Mouth", Google, and kindness of people…
"How do you measure success" –They feel that this is a tricky one. Technically it's the growing number of visitors, and even more, the growing number of active members (which they expect to rise dramatically when the support groups are up). Practically, it would be if they could quit their other jobs and focus only on MDjunction. And mostly it would be when MDjunction becomes a true meaningful community. This would be the type of place that makes a positive impact on the lives of its members and visitors. Roy knows the last one is a huge, but with that, the other two would come as well….
Currently, they allow you to rate MDs, look up ratings of MDs by specialty, and search by various criteria. There are 135,927 physicians listed as of few days ago. They have featured doctors and featured reviews. There are forums on various topics. There is also a tag cloud to see the hot topics. You can also provide a profile of yourself as you join the community. The various health issue awareness ribbons are described. I think this is a great start.
I like it that there are new and more efficient ways out there that help people solve their real-life problems. It's not that similar community sites do not exist, but to my opinion they are in an "old fashioned" format and are not Web 2.0 based, for example.
Kudos to these guys, interesting website.
Posted by: A.R. | November 17, 2006 at 08:19 AM
I also liked this site.
A friend of mine has a really sick mom, I've sent her this site and it was very encouraging for her to see and communicate with other people in the same condition. Just wish she'll be OK...
I think this site is a blessing for people with such problems.
Posted by: Mike | November 19, 2006 at 03:08 AM
I recently found a very interesting website:
http://alreadylinked.com/
There you can purchase ad space for your Blog etc.
Posted by: jack | November 20, 2006 at 12:15 PM
Hi --
Good stuff. A real value network. Smart to focus on value first, cash later. YouTube did that an earned $1.65B in GOOG.
-j
Posted by: John Maloney | November 20, 2006 at 07:24 PM