Well it's been a pretty incredible road to get here... my initial thoughts were that this thing would be a fast process... It's been exactly one year since we started working on FacetoFace Health - and it's been a ton of work.  It's interesting when you start a business how things sort of roll around (and around) and then finally you find your track.  We have spent hundreds (if not thousands) of hours working on interface design, usability, color studies, focus groups, technology foundations, matching algorythms, etc. etc.  Then take it all, get it ready and start your browser testing... Boy is that a fun process, what works in one, doesn't in another, and another - but eventually it gets done.  I think we're ready to go this time.  Last year (October) I found myself staring at FacetoFace Health and thinking - "I don't have a good revenue model" - after attending the Health 2.0 show in San Francisco I really was thinking this.  Sitting at tables with people, everyone asking everyone else - how do  you make money?.  We'll after all this time, we have our revenue model, healthcar matching algorthm, etc.  Our mailer to potential advertisers goes out the door this week - so it will be interesting to see how many want to participate in our little project.

The last six months have also been an interesting time for Health 2.0 / Social sites.  RevolutionHealth.com and DailyStrength.org were sold, and Trusera sent an email out that they might be closed at the end of April.  It's very interesting that sites like RevolutionHealth have very small communities (even though they had deep pockets) and sites like DailyStrength have very vibrant communities.  I've been asking myself over and over again - how did one get 30,000 and the other 500,000 within the same timeframe... My hunch - it's what you present to the user that the entire site is about - if your front door is a community then that's what you build - if your front door is a search engine then that's what you get.  Our goal is to have 100,000 registered users by the end of 2009 - if we can do that things will definately be flying for us - and we'll probably have to upgrade to new servers ($$$$).

It's really a shame, I think Trusera is really great, and you can see the amount of dedicated work that has been put into the site.  Of course, they also raised several million ($) while we have had to claw and scratch to get F2FH built.  It's been a hard road, managing cash flow, having very tight belts and sometimes loosing sleep over the entire project.  I was sitting in church today (Palm Sunday) and my pastor was talking about why you were put on this earth to do things... it has kept ringing in my head all day.  FacetoFace Health is about helping people and it's a good thing - I sincerly hope that it's users are able to utilize it to help themselves. 

That's about it.  We'll know shortly how well adoption starts occuring. 

Nowell

p.s. I do have to say that starting a business during and through this rough economic climate makes one focus on core items very quickly - which is good practice and we've been through it before. 

 

So I attended the Health 2.0 conference in San Francisco in October.  It was a major eye opening event for me.  Largely, there are many social sites that exist to support consumers in their need for social forums and groups.  The trouble is, none seem to make any money.  I jokingly asked a guy how much he was making from Google Adsense on his site - he pulled out a pocket of change.  You see it seems like consumers on the social networks are tuning out adsense ads that sites are desperately trying to use to generate revenues.  At this point in time I believe that people definately tune out these ads, unless they are using the internet to purposely shop for something specific.  Put the ads next to my forum or message board and click through rates become very low.  Truth be told social networks are facing a less than 1% click through rate from users on their site on specific ads.  I've read one recent entry that says it's more like .01% - scary since that is the revenue model for many of these companies.  Where is this going?  We at FacetoFace Heatlh believe we have created a revenue model that focuses on healthcare and how to keep these needed organizations and support groups going.  What else did I learn from the Health 2.0 conference - there doesnt' seem to be affiliate participation or models being engaged in these communities.  Many are focused on specific healthcare conditions and treatments, but all seem to be integrating a google ad-sense approach into their site. 

Well we've finally done it - put FacetoFaceHealth into live production.  We're starting small to grow the community in a controlled manner so that it doesn't completely overwhelms us.  I read a recent article that 10% of the people using the internet on a daily basis are looking for some form of health information - so it's sort of scary how quickly something could become overwhelmed.   It's been a very hard summer getting here, but we're basically through most of it.  Now we have version 2.0 already going and things just keep getting faster and faster. 

To the team that worked on getting us to this point - a big THANK YOU! - It could not have gotten here without the all nighters, weekend work, etc. 

Off we go.

Nowell