Google Health Launch: Furthering Health 2.0? You Decide

I will come out and say that I am excited about the Health 2.0 movement….but I do not want to overlook serious issues of privacy and security for personal information. Simply defined, Health 2.0 = the merging of social media into healthcare.

Today, the beta for Google Health officially launched. With my blog, I try to bring up points on both sides, and pose questions for discussion, and here I definitely may need your help seeing more of the positives…or educating me on how the danger of the drawbacks is being decreased. With Google Health allowing the option of importing of medical records and information, tracking medical histories and all being added into the giant that is Google, I feel there are reasons for concern.

According to the site, Google Health can

• Organize your health information all in one place
• Gather your medical records from doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies
• Keep your doctors up to date about your health
• Be more informed about important health issues

Automatically, upon reading this, I see a big challenge Google will face in launching this service: getting people to provide their medical records. I already am hesitant. Just how secure of a network will this be? I like to aim for objectivity, but with this new product, I will need your help as I see a few benefits, but many more drawbacks.

Benefits

• Makes juggling you and/or your family’s health records, coverage, medications, etc. easier as it allows for people to set up accounts for others, importing of medical records from medical, dentistry or eye care.
• Allows for self-management in a central location and for one to be more informed and educated about health choices and decisions…as well as better following finances for your health coverage.
• Users of Google Health can import medical records from U.S. pharmacies and medical facilities that include Longs Drug Stores, Walgreens Pharmacy, the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and several others.

Drawbacks

• Google says there is no financial incentives for its partners and has a Google Health Advisory Board, but I’m not yet convinced…especially when this service is still in Beta format.
• Privacy and Security Concerns: Who at Google will see this information? What will be done with it? Why does Google want to get into the Healthcare field….beyond wanting a competitive edge with Microsoft.
• In particular, this question in Google Health’s FAQs makes me raise a brow:

Does the data I store in Google Health get used for other Google products, like Search?

Yes, we share information between Google products to enable joint feautres. But no personal or medical information in your Google Health profile is used to customize your Google.com search results or used for advertising. For example, you could not search for your personal medical records on Google.com search.

Seems like we have to now with Facebook, continue to possibly update our security settings to secure our information.

How It Works

Google lists 7 Steps to Easy Use of Google Health

1. Sign Up: For you and Google’s Health Partners, the service is free. (Must be 18 or older to create a profile.)
2. Start tracking your medical history and learn about your conditions
3. Import Your Medical Records from your doctor’s office or pharmacy. (Walgreens is already a partner.)
4. View Your Medical History
5. Discover and learn how your different medications interact
6. Use Google Health to your own advantage: get second opinions, request prescription refills
7. Search for doctors and hospitals

Survey Says…

1. Dave, at Insomniac Dreams, is optimistic about Google Health and looks forward to having a central place for health information management.
2. James Niccolai, at PC World, did a nice write up about the Google Health Service, recognizing its underlying mission, but also hinting that tweaks still may be needed.
3. In late 2007, people may remember Microsoft launching HealthVault…some allude that the long-delayed launch of Google Health is a fighting match for Google to get some more competitive edge. In March, The Washington Post gave a view on Microsoft’s HealthVault versus Google Health here…concluding that perhaps the motivation isn’t 100% to aide those with their medical management, but perhaps to cash in on a growing ‘cash cow.’
4. Be sure to update me, let me know your thoughts or if you posted on Google’s Heath Beta…it may be too early to draw conclusions, but I’m curious what other people’s first impressions may be…. =)

The Jury is still out…

Is Everything Going 2.0?

Is everything going 2.0?

Health, Science, Museum, Birding, Philanthropy, Reputation, Enterprise, Food and more! Feel free to add to the list.

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• Museum 2.0 is a blog itself by Nina Simon that talks about how Web 2.0 can be applied in museum design. Nina paints her vision for the revitlization for museums and future possibilities here, and in her video.

• Health 2.0: SocialButterfly’s own post sparked by recently released research studies, regarding the developments in the growing Health 2.0 field, offering numerous examples and resources.
  

• Science 2.0: SocialButterfly’s own post on Science 2.0, including a mini-case study on the OpenWetWare project, voicing both concerns and future possibilities.
  

• Birding 2.0: Michelle Riggen-Ransom as Social Media for Social Change wrote a great piece on Birding 2.0, about how Science 2.0 and technological developments are advancing great hobbies such as bird watching in the bird watching community.

• Phianthropy 2.0: New Voices on Philanthropy shares a quick observation while live blogging at a Philanthropy 2.0 event sponsored by the Case Foundation, EPIP and 3rd Wave.

• Reputation 2.0: Jeff McCord looks at the importance of one’s online reputation when entering the trenches of the job search in his post titled, Reputation 2.0.

• Enterprise 2.0: Business Technology Leadership looked at Enterprise 2.0 – What Good is it? the other day by offering a 12-step guide on how to get the most out of web 2.0 tools.

• Food 2.0: The LA Times posted an online book review on Charlie Ayers’ book Food 2.0, Secrets From the Chef Who Fed Google.

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Other topics I Googled with a ‘2.0’ added that found results include Love 2.0, Crafts 2.0, Education 2.0, Music 2.0, Church 2.0 …What others can you find?

9 Useful [& free] Web Analytic Time Killers

From searching for web analytic tools and social media that encourage evaluation tools lately, I have been able to generate a fun list of sites that you could easily kill time with….while also having fun and learning technical insights into web analytics. Enjoy, =)

1. SEO Website Grader (Thank you Dr. Stephen Dann for this amazing tool!)

This site allows you to receive a monthly report providing helpful and useful SEO information on any site of your choice, AND to compare it against competing sites. A great resource for any search engine optimization or interactive marketing plans. Warning: Hours of time will go by before you realize it! 😉

2. Is your website Hott or Not….err, ok or ko?

Ok, we’re not in high school anymore, but don’t act like you’ve never checked out the infamous Hott or Not website or uploaded your friend’s picture to the site as a joke…

Well, now you can rate websites based on the design of their homepage with a 1-10 ranking and see the average rating other websites have received. To become a repeat visitor, register your website into the bank and see what other users rate it!

3. Blogpulse

Blogpulse is a Nielsen Buzzmetrics tool that allows one to create customized graphs based on keyword trends for chosen keywords. Other tools include featured keyword graphs based on popular keywords, conversation tracker which follows trackbacks and permalinks between blogs and blogger profiles that show the most recent posts, the sources used, numbers of times the bloggers is cited by fellow bloggers and a list of 10 related blogs. This is great for monitoring how the blogosphere views your brand, topic or organization and helps identify blog networks.

4. Ice Rocket

Ice Rocket is like a smaller version of Blogpulse and allows you to make keyword trend graphs, but only for the most recent three months, while Blogpulse lets you make a graph for the last 6 months.

5. Popular Viral Video Aggregate

Like PopURLS, only for videos, this site shows the most popular videos for YouTube, Metacafe, MySpace, Yahoo, ifilm, Break.com, Grounder and Google.

6. See Google’s top sites based on non-keyword metrics

This link takes out all the keyword data in Google and shows you what sites Google sees as the best ranked with the most traffic.

7. Alltop Topic: Social Media

Alltop is a blog aggregate that provides the most recent 5 posts from the top 40 blogs, sorted by topic. Topics include social media, nonprofit, moms, life, dads, career, celebrities, games, SEO, Macintosh, Windows, Journalism, world news, photography and more!

8. PopURLs

PopURLS is an aggregate that provides the most popular links across the web including digg, del.icio.us, flickr, reddit, Truemors, YouTube, Google and Yahoo news, AOL Video, Mahalo, Twitter and more!

9. Hits Log

Hits Log is an SEO tool that allows you to discover your site’s Google Pank Rank and search engine rank. Though not as useful as Website grader, it may be easier for some to use.

Feel free to add to the list.

9 Useful [& free] Web Analytic Time Killers

From searching for web analytic tools and social media that encourage evaluation tools lately, I have been able to generate a fun list of sites that you could easily kill time with….while also having fun and learning technical insights into web analytics. Enjoy, =)

1. SEO Website Grader (Thank you Dr. Stephen Dann for this amazing tool!)

This site allows you to receive a monthly report providing helpful and useful SEO information on any site of your choice, AND to compare it against competing sites. A great resource for any search engine optimization or interactive marketing plans. Warning: Hours of time will go by before you realize it! 😉

2. Is your website Hott or Not….err, ok or ko?

Ok, we’re not in high school anymore, but don’t act like you’ve never checked out the infamous Hott or Not website or uploaded your friend’s picture to the site as a joke…

Well, now you can rate websites based on the design of their homepage with a 1-10 ranking and see the average rating other websites have received. To become a repeat visitor, register your website into the bank and see what other users rate it!

3. Blogpulse

Blogpulse is a Nielsen Buzzmetrics tool that allows one to create customized graphs based on keyword trends for chosen keywords. Other tools include featured keyword graphs based on popular keywords, conversation tracker which follows trackbacks and permalinks between blogs and blogger profiles that show the most recent posts, the sources used, numbers of times the bloggers is cited by fellow bloggers and a list of 10 related blogs. This is great for monitoring how the blogosphere views your brand, topic or organization and helps identify blog networks.

4. Ice Rocket

Ice Rocket is like a smaller version of Blogpulse and allows you to make keyword trend graphs, but only for the most recent three months, while Blogpulse lets you make a graph for the last 6 months.

5. Popular Viral Video Aggregate

Like PopURLS, only for videos, this site shows the most popular videos for YouTube, Metacafe, MySpace, Yahoo, ifilm, Break.com, Grounder and Google.

6. See Google’s top sites based on non-keyword metrics

This link takes out all the keyword data in Google and shows you what sites Google sees as the best ranked with the most traffic.

7. Alltop Topic: Social Media

Alltop is a blog aggregate that provides the most recent 5 posts from the top 40 blogs, sorted by topic. Topics include social media, nonprofit, moms, life, dads, career, celebrities, games, SEO, Macintosh, Windows, Journalism, world news, photography and more!

8. PopURLs

PopURLS is an aggregate that provides the most popular links across the web including digg, del.icio.us, flickr, reddit, Truemors, YouTube, Google and Yahoo news, AOL Video, Mahalo, Twitter and more!

9. Hits Log

Hits Log is an SEO tool that allows you to discover your site’s Google Pank Rank and search engine rank. Though not as useful as Website grader, it may be easier for some to use.

Feel free to add to the list.

Web 2.0 Wednesday – Super Tuesday Super Cool: When Google Met Twitter

 

So, I’ll leave the political analysis to those more qualified, but I will point out a super cool social media event that also took place on Super Tuesday: Google Met Twitter.

Google teamed up with Twitter and Twittervision to show on Google maps, people’s comments through Twitter about the elections and Super Tuesday. and, it was live! Every few seconds the map would change and take you halfway across the world to a person’s comment in Malta, then to Australia, then to Southern California. This continued throughout the day. Then, as the night continued, reported live results too.

Talk about relevance!

This is what social media is all about…and can be about when used and optimized to full potential. Many social marketing clients may get nervous when venturing into new territory, and then again, nowadays, anyone can make a MySpace or a Facebook. But, taking the risks, venturing outside the box, adding to the tools in your belt, and you can come up with fun, interactive, attention-getting technology and marketing.

Wanted to share the tidbit.

Click here to check it out. Not sure how long Google and Twitter plan on keeping the application live however.

Web 2.0 Wednesday: Building a Field of Dreams

Dream big. When non-profits look at the World of Web 2.0 and begin to learn about all of its possibilities, I think you should dream big. This accomplishes two things:1. Can create excitement and a learning culture when presented to staff. If no ‘expert’ knowledge is really held by any, it can bond staff together in that everyone is experiencing a similar learning curve where all inputs and questions are equal and valuable.

2. Shows that your organization or cause can be limitless and bigger than yourself and your staff. Oftentimes, it brings staff members back to the original purpose of why they are doing what they do by reigniting their passion.

Now, keeping dreaming big in mind, I also empathize with the Non-Profit Tech blogger, Allan Benamer whose post discusses Web 2.0’s barriers to entry in some non-profit worlds. Allan brings up some great points on how a non-profit can approach technology, all technology, and create a culture shift within organizations without the web 2.0 hype.
To share an experience, last summer I was a research consultant for a non-profit organization. This included conducting an e-communications training workshop for all staff, conducting a User-Interface study, gathering relevant case studies, identifying and researching a target audience (Surprise, the millennials), and drafting recommendations for the organizatioan’s e-strategy.

In brief, the whole project was a great success. We purposefully left out a budget section of the recommendations as the chief communications officer and I agreed that a budget section would limit the brainstorming process by placing the focus on what we can and can’t do, rather than bringing the staff together to learn, brainstorm and have fun.

From the experience, the staff as a group, came to the consensus that they were focusing too much on their inputs, than their outputs in all their communications and strategy. It may seem like a simple outcome from the project, but it meant great changes for the organization. It brought everyone back under the original purpose of the organization – to help their clients, show how fun doing good can be and to share that with others. Instead of focusing on text bringing in donations and showing how each dollar would be used (which is important) and looking at what the organization could ‘get’ from their donors….they instead made a change. They started to focus on their outputs and what they are offering as a whole.

Now, the organization is changing for the better by the day. These changes include:

• Updates and additions to their website and e-communications strategy. Some of which include simple presentation changes but others include great uses of Web 2.0.
• A refreshed staff who is renewed by their passion and greater purpose of the organization.
• Increased organization internally.
• More ways for volunteers to get involved.
• Greater participation and interest in events by the millennial audience.
• And more!

All in all, yes, technology is great. Yes, Web 2.0 can be fun and helpful. But also.

Dream big. Remember your purpose. And, focus your energy on your outputs and your inputs will follow. (As a quick analogy, if you focused solely on blog traffic, would you get more traffic? Or, if you focused on offering great content, wouldn’t the traffic follow? Think Field of Dreams.)

Invisible Children: From Grassroots to Mega Movement

You may have heard of Invisible Children. And no, this is nothing from a science-fiction movie.

Invisible Children is a non-profit that benefits children in war-torn Uganda. It began as a grassroots efforts in 2003 when 3 college students set off on an adventure to Uganda. With only a video camera to document their travels, they discovered a 17-year war they had never heard of where children were being forced to be child soldiers.

Their biggest observation was witnessing hundreds of children marching every night, miles upon miles, from their homes in the country to Gulu in hopes of avoiding being forced into the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army). The children shared their stories with the students about their nightly commute and the struggles they face everyday. What came through clear, was that the children wanted more education.

Upon witnessing what they did, the students turned their videos into a documentary and showed it to anyone and everyone. The movement grew into the Global Night Commute , where Americans all over the country walked miles to sleep outside within their own cities, hoping for others to notice the situation in Uganda.

Since the Global Commute, Invisible Children’s movement has grown…a lot. Currently, it has a fully developed website, a visible child scholarship program, a bracelet campaign, Invisible Children Campus Movie Tour bus, teacher exchange program, internships, a world tour and more. For more information on the war or the movement, I highly recommend visiting and browsing the site.

I mention it here for three reasons:

1) I think it’s a great example of how a grassroots movement can go from a few individuals to an international movement…and how a good story, enhanced by media capabilities can be powerful beyond words.

2) I wanted to highlight how collaboration can lead to a more effective campaign and cause. This movement was begun by college students by has even hit the steps of Washington by gaining the interests of the media, policy makers, world leaders, government officials, special interest groups, partnering NGOs and more.

3) I wanted to emphasis the great use of capitalizing on your target and interested audiences. This movement begun by showing the movie at house parties and on college campuses, working to gain that one-on-one interaction combined with powerful stories and powerful media. Also, by targeting college campuses first (especially with Generation M), it made for a strong network to grow the movement. And, for great resources (students) to tap into to also promote the cause – they still believe that anything is possible, have more flexible schedules, want to feel like they matter, want to be the change in the world, have the technology know how, have some education and many other useful attributes…and with Invisible Children working to aide the children of Uganda…this is an audience college students can more closely relate towards, and as history shows, turned out quite successful.

Bravo. =)

(You can watch the original Invisible Children video here.)

Web 3.0: Is it just semantics?

The answer is yes…and no.

The difference between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 goes beyond a semantical argument and is a legit and growing concept despite groups that classify it as just the latest web-marketing diction craze. Like many terms (including the recent discussion on the social marketing list serv in trying to define social marketing from social media marketing, there are many different opinions defining the perimeters of Web 3.0 and different hypotheses on how the future of the web will progress.
Since I began this blog a week ago, I’ve had a couple inquiries asking: What is Web 3.0? This post hopes to explain this concept to those who are hearing of the term for the first time.

Web 3.0 is an extension of the web evolution from Web 1.0, to Web 2.0 and now, to the growing Web 3.0. Web 1.0 is usually described as ‘read-only’ content, while Web 2.0 was officially launched at the first Web 2.0 Conference in 2005. In brief, Web 2.0 describes a website’s capabilities as collaborative, customizable, interactive and can be shared. Web 2.0 can describe technologies such as blogs, wikis, tags, RSS feeds, user generated content and sites such as del.icio.us, Facebook, Flickr, MySpace and YouTube. Tim O’Reilly’s article describes Web 2.0 in great detail and is an excellent source to begin understanding the Web 2.0 world. The article also includes a diagram outlining the differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0.

Web 3.0, on the other hand, describes the next level. PC Magazine gives a full article on this topic, but I will try to summarize it in brief. Some describe Web 3.0 as being 3-D, having artificial intelligence components, new web service applications, and more. Web 3.0 may also be referred to as the Semantic Web (hence, the play on words…). The idea is that machines and services will be more advanced and better equipped to help consumers read, understand and navigate the web. Another term describing Web 3.0 is the Pervasive Web, meaning web technology is everywhere. This means taking the web beyond computers, cellphones, PDAs and other hand-held technologies to more, everyday life technologies and situations.

Feel free to comment on how you personally would define Web 3.0 according to your view/experience. Or, offer your prediction on which way the wild, wild web may go.

Web 2.0 Wednesdays

With the growth of Web 2.0 (and the up and coming uses of Web 3.0), I plan to showcase an organization/cause that’s using great Web 2.0 strategies to further its mission within its social marketing strategies.

Today’s Web 2.0 Wednesday honors The National MS Society’s site centered around its latest re-branding for raising awareness and support for MS, their micro-site Join The Movement.

On this site, they have ‘The Wall’ and the option to ‘Create Your Mark.’ Here, users of the site can literally draw their own statement against MS, including the cause’s new logo and rebranded mission. Then, it can be submitted to The Wall, with hundred’s of other users’ drawings. This not only reenforces the newly packaged mission, but allows for customization, interaction with the cause and shows how the disease affects others.

Props to the MS Society! ps- They also have another cool micro-site they use to share and submit various personal stories about the effects of Multiple Sclerosis, http://www.faceofms.org/.