Techcrunch profiles a new social network site in the health niche. DailyStrength describes itself as:
Most everyone has a serious personal challenge themselves or has someone close to them that does. DailyStrength is a collection of safe, anonymous, online support groups focused on over 500 specific challenges to help people overcome their personal challenge or support a loved one through theirs.
DailyStrength isn't just for those living with a challenge themselves - care givers, supporters and medical professionals are welcome as well. Everyone can use a helping hand once in a while and our mission is to provide a safe forum where people can connect with others who know exactly what they're going through.
[From the Techcrunch review] The highlight of DailyStrength is that users are asked to describe medical and psychological treatments they have undergone. They indicate what conditions those treatments were for, whether they were effective and provide a narrative about the experience. That information is then aggregated by condition and treatment - so it’s easy to see what a large number of people have done in response to a condition or what it’s really like to undergo a certain treatment.
The idea of aggregating health conditions rather than creating sites for each specific one has some advantages from both a business POV as well as allowing for interactions among people with different health and medical conditions - but similar challenges and coping strategies. The section on treatments where people comment and rate the effectiveness of their therapy is also sure to raise some interest. Will the government and voluntary health agencies engaged in places like SecondLife be as attracted to participating in this community?
The site notes a small group of health experts who are 'Community Advisors,' but I did not find much to suggest what the developers are doing to assure any standards of quality or credibility for the health information on their site. Yes, people have their own experiences with health conditions they should be able to share with interested others. And they do have the HONcode seal on their home page. Building the transparency and trust for a successful social network site to operate in while protecting its users from unwanted health fraud, hoaxes and DTC advertising and promotions from many different types of marketers will be a ongoing and delicate balance to strike.
As the site matures, they might use the recommendations for health sites in Healthy People 2010 to guide its development:
To allow users to evaluate the quality and appropriateness of Internet health resources, health-related Web sites should publicly disclose the following essential information about their site: (1) the identity of the developers and sponsors of the site (and how to contact them) and information about any potential conflicts of interest or biases, (2) the explicit purpose of the site, including any commercial purposes and advertising, (3) the original sources of the content on the site, (4) how the privacy and confidentiality of any personal information collected from users is protected, (5) how the site is evaluated, (6) and how the content is updated. An additional mark of quality which should be present in a Web site relates to the site’s accessibility by all users. Contents of the site should be presented in a way that it can be used by people with disabilities and with low-end technology.
Comments