Establishing a web world for junior scientists

The University of Leicester Research Training Innovation Fund has funded a new project. Its an Health 2.0/science 2.0 project

They are trying to establish a small social networks for junior scientists which are lacking an important professional connections with their colleagues in the real world on the base that they are tend to work in an isolate environmemt ( small labs and on private projects/research).

The concept is to create seeds of small social networks that in the future will connect between themselves and will create a huge platform of brain storming for those who are really need it in the right time of their careers and they are lacking the right resources ( budgets and time) for that in this stage of their professional life.

The platform will bring some well known web 2.0 applications such as:

Rss , Microblogging tools, Wikis, Social bookmarking .

I think this is an important and a unique project :

1. The concept of not bieng a SU but a "kind of a research program" will give them an advantage to be more criticise and to learn more deeply the truely needs of the scientists from the web in general and from social networks particular

2. They choose the "right market" for this kind of project - Eager scientists who are willing to improve their abilities and professional connections. Most of them are probably young and are more prone to adopt advanced web
technologies
3. The concept of "small networks" will help them to examine more carefully the pro's and cons of the project and the applications within the networking.

So good luck guys
Let us know how you are progressing

Its time to be more innovative

People

I must disagree with my colleauge in the health 2.0 world - Bertalan Mesko who is writing the excellent blog - Scienceroll.
In one of his latest post he wrote about a new platform called Researchgate.com.

Bertalan called it : "Facebook for scientist"
Maybe it is . Maybe its a great platform but still it seems to be a generic one .
Im disagrre with the pharse :
" researchgate.net changes the picture by offering international networking technology to scientists of all disciplines. It is the world’s first platform of its kind and features numerous technological highlights that simplify research cooperation".

People, we must be more innovative . There are numerous platforma that are trying to be the "Facebook for scientist" already. Some will say there are even more .
Now we are looking for something new, something that leed us to the next step not saying the next generation.

Revenge of the experts - Is it crucial to the Health 2.0?

One of the hypes concerning the web 2.0 is the "Wisdom of the crowds" concept.

This concept led to developement of many SU including in the Health 2.0/Medical 2.0 sector.
Many new communitiesand social networks are based on this concept.
In the health sector we reviewed in the past several consumers based communities and it seems that there are more and more of them .
I want to share with you a review I read on newsweek which published several days ago - The revenge of the experts .
The main theme is the importance of the experts knowledge to influence and to balance unauthorized and unreliable content.
In the article you can find some example for new "certified content sites "
like :
Bigthink.com
or:
Googles version for wikipedia -Knol (here you can find a sample of knol for the term "Insomnia").

I must agree with the thesis and even say that its more crucial in the health sector.
We must be aware of the cons and the dangers of consumers becoming "addicted" to others unprofessional advices without any reliable source who can edit or controll some way the content flow.
No, Im not arguing that social networks are a major forward step in the nature of the web but probably the next step will be finding the gold pathway that will combine the power of the "wisdom of the crowds" with the basic power of the "knowledge of the experts".
In the health/medical sector is essential.

Social networking for physicians - Updated on Medical 20.com

Yesterday we updated our Medical 20.com site with several more social networking and communities for physicians.
So we have almost dozen of these kind of sites so far.

1. Do we need so many sites for narrow niche ( lets remember that the main crowd didnt join yet to the web 2.0/ Health 2.0 hype) ? .
2.What is their business model or what is the added value these sites are giving to the professionals outside of the commodities - platform and application for community ?

For me thereare intuitive answers :

1. Its too crowded for another "simple" social networking.
2. The "basic platform" for community should be an extra layer to an innovative idea that will gather the professional together.
Im waiting for the "killer platform" that will cause physicians and scientist to see and value the benefits of being there- on the net .

What is your observation regarding this issue?

Doccheck - Another community for Healthcare professionals

The official numbers are impressive for niche social community such as Doccheck - more than 500,000 users.
Its probably the leading healthcare community in Europe . The origin is from Germany.
These days they are intending to enlarge their community by openning their platform in variety of countries around the globe.It means offering multilingual platform and some related content in each country site.
Although the community is spreading today outside Europe the beginning was in Germany.
The Firms public information is that as 50 % of the german physician are members in this site. I presume that some of them are not really active.

Doccheck Faces is a simple Health/Medical 2.0 community .They are giving all the traditional applications of "web 2.0 community".
Their strength is of being the first in the neighborhood(Europe) . Maybe even being a "simple platform" is helping them with the busy consumers- the physicians.In the other hand this is their weakness as well - They must find out themselves again.Many others are oferring the same application.

Note :

Their have a unique database by offering to their registrated members a password system who used to control access to over 1700 websites with professional related content.

By my opinion their UI design is lacking

Biomedexperts.com - Passing over some entrance thresholds

Biomedexperts.com is another social networking in the Health 2.0 arena but yet is different in some aspects :

1. Business and marketing - Strong collaboration between two companies . One of them is Dell. Dell probably will use her strong marketing resources to help spreading the rumor about Biomedexperts among scientists.

2. Segment - Although there are several social networking in the health 2.0 sector , the more advanced ones until present are for physicians. Biomedexperts is totally dedicted her efforts among life science researchers (science 2.0).

3. Solving the problem of day "1" ? - One of the most basic business and marketing problems that any social networking have to deal with is "how to create critical mass of trafic in day "1"?.Without such traffic every potential end user who exposed to the platform can leave it for good by the fact that he doesnt find any added value . Biomedexperts trying to solve that problem by creating virtual identities of almost every searcher or scientist who has fixed number of research publications in Pubmed.
By creation such virtual environment any new active participant can find added value while exposing to enormous data about colleagues. Still , this is ,maybe,only good for solving the entrance threshold of day "1" but afterward
end users are still looking for real interaction with other members .

Alternative medicine 2.0 - Community site

Last post I covered Mamaherb and exposed for you the "Alternative medicine 2.0".
So here another platform that fitting to that term.
Rootdown.us is social community for people who are interested in alternative medicine and for those who are involved in that field and working as therapists.

Basically it has all the features of classic web 2.0 social networking .
There are some extra added value sections like :
1. Search engine for formulas
2. Acumapper- Detailed map describing Acupuncture Point on the human bodey .

Dont forget that Alternative medicine 2.0 is a subsection in the health 2.0 sector.
Many Physicians today are combining convential practice alongside alternative practice, not mention that large percentage of the consumers are interested in this field.

Social networks for patients

You know already my view regarding the importance and the central part of web 2.0 tools for the patients/consumers.

Transferring the knowledge in the field of health/medicine 2.0 to our patients is one of our missions.
Social networks for patient are part of these tools.

Here is a short review concerning these networks with several examples.

Note: It's not a full list, just good examples for this subject

Difussion of the " medicine 2.0 concept"

Interesting

Everything is probably coming in pairs

Here, I'm going to mention CDC again.This time is to introduce you with one of their latests posts :
Virtual Community Health Promotion by Richard Crespo, PhD
It's about the power of web communities in the service of health and medical issues.
The writer mentioned wikis, social networking and blogs.He also gives some examples and ideas how to use this concept.
For me it's another example and empiric data that the concepts of the medical 2.0 are becoming more and more popular and obvious to physicians, researchers and key leaders in the health sector.

Look and see the influance of this review by the eyes of another blogger in our sector:
"Web 2.0 - Do people in health get it?"
It's also a chance to introduce you with another blogger and blog ( good ones).

Enjoy

Ning- medical 2.0

Hi
Social networking is one of the essential and basic components of what we called the web 2.0 world.
The "social community" became one of the major trend on the web in 2006 and 2007. Just look and see how much is written about facebook lately.
Even in our world, the health 2.0 world, this buzz resulted in few social networking for doctors, physicians, researchers and even nurses.
The most ambitious one ( until this current moment ) is sermo.
Im not going to make a post about sermo or the other medical social networking.
I want to write for you about the "ning phenomenon".
First, what is ning?
Ning is an "open platform for creating social networking".
Everyone can build his own social networking without any tech or web knowledge.
By "step to step" method you can create it .
The basic package gives you the opportunity to built with no cost and even ad -supported network with all the features that you are familiar with . (blogs, pictures, video, groups etc.)
Currently they are 76,000 networks by this platform.
If you are looking for health social networking you will find dozens of them.
Some of them are not handling real traffic but others do .
This is the right place discussing the potential of ning for the medical 2.0 wprld :
1. You can share a network with your class mates (as a med student). For a medical students its a great opportunity to share some relevant material during their studies and during the exams periods. While everyone are seperated to small groups during the clarckships , it can be a way to keep connections with others that are not belonging to yours study group.
2. Create a small community for all of your colleagues in the out patient clinic or even your colleagues at the hospital.
3. You can create the "ward community" . Everyone can share some exprience from their work . Mostly, we dont have time for that in the busy real world. The seniors can give additive consultation regarding patients while everyone can see it and makes comments when they find the right time for it . Its like a " continuity of consultation". Seniors can write blogs in their subspecialities and share others with their clinical and academic knowledge and wisdom.

There much more opportunities that we can find and create by using Ning in our world . By that we will make it much more health 2.0 world.