J&J supports new site, webisodes on iVillage.com

J&J supports new site, webisodes on iVillage.com

Johnson & Johnson brands, including Tylenol and Zyrtec, are supporting The Family Room, a new multimedia experience on iVillage.com. Johnson & Johnson is teaming with NBC Olympics and iVillage for the project, which will follow eight athletes and their families as they prepare to qualify for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games during the next five months. The Family Room will feature weekly webisodes about the lives of the Olympic hopefuls and their families. There are also social features, blogs, a forum, and a graffiti wall. The Family Room will also feature information about products from the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies.

Building a Brand with Widgets

The customizable bits of software on Facebook and other social networking sites are the latest trend in viral marketing. But are widgets here to stay?

by Rachael King

The cards were stacked against A&E Television Network as it tried to generate positive buzz about its new series, Parking Wars. For one, it's a reality show about meter readers. Two, the show doesn't feature celebrities. "We thought if we could find a clever way of increasing consumer interaction with the concept behind the show that we would increase curiosity in the show itself," says Lori Peterzell, A&E's vice-president for consumer marketing.

So A&E hired area/code, a multimedia game developer, to build an online game based on Parking Wars. Played on the social network Facebook, the game has users park virtual cars on friends' profile pages, or "streets," while slapping tickets on cars parked on their own page and avoiding tickets themselves.

Grand Theft Auto it's not. What makes Parking Wars unique is how it's distributed. The game is passed from one person to the next by way of widgets, small bundles of software that users can download, customize, and forward to a single pal or an entire contact list with the click of a mouse. Widgets like Parking Wars, which are designed for a specific social networking site, are typically referred to as applications. Since its Dec. 17 introduction, Parking Wars has attracted more than 198,000 unique users, many of them repeat players, and generated more than 45 million page views.

Raising Brand Awareness

"It's surpassing our expectations," Peterzell says. A growing number of companies hope they'll be wowed by widgets, too. Electronic Arts (ERTS), Viacom's (VIA) Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Gap (GPS), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Hallmark, and Blockbuster (BBI) are among the businesses hoping to spread a marketing message or raise brand awareness through these modules of content used by millions of social network users to customize profiles or communicate with friends.

Interest in widgets is rising as marketers become disaffected by other methods of online advertising, especially on social networks. Google (GOOG) executives said in January they're not generating as much revenue as expected (BusinessWeek.com, 1/31/08) from placing ads on News Corp.'s (NWS) MySpace.

Some marketers say widgets may do a better job engaging users than, say, so-called banner ads emblazoned across the sides of social network profiles. "Content and functionality are the new creativity—it's not about whether you have a whiz-bang rich media banner running," says Andy Bateman, CEO of brand consultancy Interbrand New York. "Are you doing something that's actually helpful and useful to people?"

Some Facebook Campaigns Have Fizzled

There's plenty of anecdotal success. Sony Pictures promoted its Resident Evil zombie flick by running a sweepstakes in conjunction with Rock You's popular Zombies application, which lets people send virtual zombies to bite their friends. Sony Pictures had hoped 10,000 people would sign up for its contest, and instead got 1 million takers, says RockYou CEO Lance Tokuda.

But there are even more examples of branded Facebook applications from household names such as Blockbuster, Hallmark, and Verizon (VZ) that have fallen flat. The market for ad-related widgets is still in its infancy, as evidenced by eMarketer projection that U.S. Web widget and application ad spending in 2008 will amount to $40 million, just 2.5% of the $1.6 billion in U.S. online social network ad spending. The verdict is out on whether widgets will become an integral part of social networking marketing and ad campaigns or whether they are, as some critics say, a passing fad.

The potential audience is vast. MySpace has some 110 million active users worldwide, and Facebook has a little more than 66 million. Yet of the nearly 17,000 applications on Facebook, only 138 had more than 1 million installations on Feb. 25, according to Adonomics, a firm that tracks Facebook statistics.

A Short Shelf Life for Many Widgets

To do well, branded widgets typically must engage users often, piggyback on existing popular applications, and be aimed at the right audience. "It's very challenging to maintain someone's interest over a long period of time," says Debra Aho Williamson, a senior analyst at eMarketer. "Applications and widgets have a pretty short shelf life."

In fact, the adoption rate of many applications on social networking sites looks something like a steep bell curve, typically with rapid adoption at the outset and a quick drop when the enthusiasm ebbs. Depending on the application, that lifespan can be days, weeks, or months. The applications with the longest life tend to be those where developers constantly add new features to get users to come back.

Another recipe for success is joining forces with an already popular application. Independent widget makers Slide and RockYou have mastered the art of building applications that hook users and get passed liberally from one person to the next. One of Slide's most popular Facebook applications is SuperPoke, a communication tool that lets people do everything from send virtual hugs to throw virtual objects at friends. At one point, Samsung Electronics (SSNGY) sponsored a tool that lets users throw a picture of an HDTV at pals.

Reaching Out to a Younger Audience

Many adults may not immediately see the appeal of throwing a sheep or an HDTV at a friend. Then again, they're probably not the target demographic. RockYou, for instance, designs applications that appeal to teen girls. "Our goal is maximum reach, and teen girls are the most viral people on the planet," RockYou's Tokuda says.

In creating applications for Facebook, TripAdvisor wanted to reach a younger audience than its traditional 35-44 demographic. It has tried a mix of buying advertising on other applications and creating its own. "You can spend a lot of money buying installs if your application is not viral," says Christine Petersen, the company's senior vice-president for marketing.

Petersen would rather create her own applications and hope for organic growth. In-house application building is less expensive. It's also a better way to build a brand, she says. The efforts don't always pan out, but the stakes are sufficiently low that it can afford some flops. TripAdvisor's Cities I've Visited, a map where people can show where they've traveled, has been very successful. At its peak, Cities I've Visited was installed by 7.8 million people. It took two people about three days to build that application. Another app, a quiz called What Obnoxious Traveler Are You?, launched on Jan. 29, fared considerably worse, and has garnered only 500 installations as of Feb. 26. "It's been a dud," says Petersen.

Developers Are Lining Up to Make Widgets

Peers at other companies concur. "The great benefit of doing a Facebook application that only took three weeks to build is that it's very inexpensive and your opportunity to experiment is very high," says Neil Young, group general manager at Electronic Arts. Young says that Electronic Arts has spent less than $200,000 over several months with developer Context Optional to build and run a trivia game called Smarty Pants, a pared-down version of a Wii game by the same name that EA sells. He estimates that many independent developers charge between $15,000 and $50,000 a month to build and maintain branded applications such as Smarty Pants.

There's certainly no shortage of programmers willing to make widgets. Facebook has attracted more than 150,000 active developers since May, 2007, according to Developer Analytics, a company that tracks the Facebook developer community. One draw is that Facebook lets indie developers sell advertising on their applications and keep the profit. Yet some social networking sites, including MySpace, were initially reluctant to open pages to an influx of third-party widgets (BusinessWeek.com, 5/22/07). MySpace is now offering developers the opportunity to make money from their applications.

The same goes for social networking site Bebo, which officially opened to third-party developers on Dec. 12. Already NBA, Yahoo! (YHOO), Gap, and other brand marketers have created applications for the site. About 5,000 Bebo users have added the Gap's ModelMaker application, where they can become virtual Gap models by adding their photos and choosing outfits, a pose and a scene.

Plagued by Lack of Standard Metrics

RockYou's Tokuda says he also expects social networking sites hi5 and Orkut to give developers tools to create third-party applications within the next five weeks or so.

Still, it may be a while before widgets become an advertising and branding force to be reckoned with. Because of a lack of industry standard metrics, it's difficult to compare the relative success or failure of widgets, and just how much a widget is worth (BusinessWeek.com, 1/7/08). What's more, many users are getting turned off by advertising on social networking sites (BusinessWeek.com, 7/7/08). "I think application fatigue is real, and it will force people to look at what they're developing and how much they're spending," says TripAdvisor's Petersen.

Others wonder if advertising widgets can work at all on social networking sites. "Frankly, I'm very skeptical about the whole thing," says Ben Kunz, director of strategic planning at Media Associates, a media planning firm. Part of the problem, says Kunz, is that a person has to be receptive to advertising, and that's not the case with many people when they're surfing around social networking sites. "There's so much talk about viral marketing, but if it were really that easy to do, then everybody would be doing it."

Still, that isn't deterring A&E from going to the ad widget well. The company is considering widgets for shows besides Parking Wars, Peterzell says, adding: "We're in the middle of looking at concepts for returning series and for some other shows and titles being launched later this year."

King is a writer for BusinessWeek.com in San Francisco .

New Social Networking Site, Paired with DNA Test of Members, Brings the Power of Science to Everyman

New Social Networking Site, Paired with DNA Test of Members, Brings the Power of Science to Everyman

Business Wire via NewsEdge Corporation :

Lifestyle Editors/Internet Writers

VANCOUVER, Canada--(BUSINESS WIRE)--February 27, 2008--Genetic testing is now the newest way to connect. A new social network, www.genebase.com, allows users to submit a DNA sample from home, retrieve the results online and then connect with community members interested in finding others with shared genetic traits.

By adding a social networking component to the fast growing interest in tracing one’ s ancestry, the developers of Genebase.com are putting personal DNA genealogy knowledge directly into the hands of consumers and giving them the tools to use it to learn more about themselves.

To get started, consumers log onto www.genebase.com and purchase a test kit. While they are waiting for their results, they can set up their family tree and start connecting to other members of the network. Once their DNA results are posted, they can explore their own unique genetic makeup and find out more about their roots.

Genebase.com offers a wide range of databases against which members can compare their DNA, including a deep ancestry marker database that allows members to trace their family history back 150,000 years; a database containing the DNA of indigenous populations, compiled from hundreds of scientific studies, that lets members see how their genetics compare to current populations around the world; and genebase.com’ s user database, which allows them to connect with long lost relatives. Genebase.com already has entries from more than 600,000 registered members and is growing rapidly.

www.genebase.com was created by Genetrack Biolabs, one of the largest DNA testing labs in North America. In addition to DNA testing for hospitals and other laboratories, Genetrack’ s technicians do forensic studies for criminal investigations and court cases. Experts in DNA work, Genetrack technicians have also tested remains from mass graves in the UK and Europe.

Consumers can purchase a DNA Ancestry Project maternal or paternal DNA test kit for just $119 each. The kit includes a CD that provides a convenient user interface to the wide range of search analysis tools available at the social networking site. A combo test costs $238.

One of the worst....

This is one of the worst copy-cat viral campaigns I have ever seen (copying Criss Angel's "Freak Your Mind").   Extremely disappointing for a show like "HEROES".

 

http://www.heroesmindreader.com/

Jarvik Teaches Us A Lesson

Jarvik Teaches Us A Lesson

Source:
Bob Ehrlich, Chairman
DTC Perspectives, Inc.

It is over and done with. Dr. Jarvik is rowing into the sunset or in his case we're watching the stunt double row away. I think Pfizer got a raw deal in all the criticism as I have written previously. No consumer took Lipitor because of Jarvik's scientific or athletic prowess. He may have stimulated some interest in asking for more information about Lipitor but that is about all. Let's give consumers and doctors more credit for their decision making. No consumer was harmed because Jarvik did not practice medicine.

So what should we all take away from Pfizer's decision to pull the campaign? They had to pull it because consumers and physicians were focused on Jarvik's credentials rather than on the product itself. When a celebrity gets in the way of the message it is time to change. The campaign was good, but there are likely plenty of good back-up campaigns for Lipitor at the agency without the celebrity theme. Lipitor did fine since its DTC launch with several non-celebrity campaigns.

Use of a celebrity can be more of a liability than a help. They are always susceptible to both past and future negative news. They cost a lot and most people have little faith in the word of a celebrity endorser. When celebrities are used more as actors that is fine. Sally Field is great for Boniva because she is not acting as an expert, just an aging actress trying to stay strong. Celebrities who are used for medical expertise will be given the full investigative treatment. Jarvik is a lesson that the numerous critics are watching carefully to embarrass the drug marketers.


Pfizer will be given little credit for pulling the campaign. It will be seen by critics as a capitulation to being discovered as misrepresenting the credentials of their spokesperson. The critics will use the Jarvik situation as a reason why DTC misleads the public. I am sure FDA will be very careful in vetting celebrity endorser credentials in the future. Clearly they are under intense pressure to make DTC harder to do. I would expect some additional risk and side effect requirements to be enacted in the future.

I am quite certain Pfizer never secretly intended anyone to believe Jarvik was a renowned heart surgeon. He is what he says he is and no more. That being said, the lesson here is that if consumers may misinterpret the endorser's credentials, then the burden is on drug companies to prevent it. Following the letter of the law is no longer good enough. As aggressive as marketers and their agencies want to be in their claims and creative power, the negative impact of having them misinterpreted is high. The Jarvik case should be studied by all DTC marketers for the lessons and risks of celebrity endorsers.

 

Novartis Web, TV campaign promotes breast cancer awareness in Latin America

Novartis Web, TV campaign promotes breast cancer awareness in Latin America

Novartis is teaming with Sony Pictures Television International (SPTI) for a multiplatform breast cancer prevention and early detection campaign in support of Latin-American women. The campaign, called "SER," which means "to be" in Spanish, will build an online community where women can access the resources they need to understand, detect, and treat breast cancer. The campaign will be promoted via the cable television channels for which SPTI handles the advertising sales in Latin America. There will also be community-based programming. Novartis and SPTI are currently recruiting partners to provide a range of needed expertise to include scientific and medical knowledge, financial advice, patient education, treatment options, fashion tips, and health and diet plans. The campaign combines Novartis' resources and expertise in oncology with SPTI's media reach to assist Latin-American women in their fight against breast cancer.
 

Yahoo Launches Digg-Like Social News Features

Yahoo Launches Digg-Like Social News Features

 

The New York Times

Yahoo is taking direct aim at social-news aggregators like Digg and Reddit with a new tool called Yahoo Buzz that calls up the most popular articles voted on by the Web site's massive user base. As part of the Buzz launch, Yahoo is also introducing previews of content on other sites. For example, a search for a LinkedIn user could return links to that person's connections or their full profile; a search for a restaurant could include links to a reservation page or a review. The moves are in line with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang's wish to open the Web giant's services to third-party publishers.

Buzz draws heavily from the "open" theme. Instead of turning Buzz into a destination site (like Digg or Reddit), Yahoo plans to include the actual content that surfaces on Buzz in its front page. Items that are most searched for and most voted on will place higher. Yahoo's editors will then choose which Buzz stories to include on its homepage, which receives 90 million U.S. visitors per month.

Testing has shown that Yahoo links are a boon to third-party publishers. Traffic to Esquire magazine doubled in the month that Yahoo linked to the magazine's content from its homepage. Participating publishers in Buzz include, The New York Times, USA Today, the Washington Post and People and dozens of blogs and online sites. Yahoo's plan is to open Buzz to every site on the Web.

Avenue A / Razorfish Attributes $735 Million of Online Spend to Vertical Properties and Search Engines

Avenue A / Razorfish Attributes $735 Million of Online Spend to Vertical Properties and Search Engines

Business Wire via NewsEdge Corporation

Business Editors

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--February 24, 2008--In its fourth annual digital outlook guide for marketers and advertisers, Avenue A | Razorfish, one of the world’ s largest interactive agencies and buyers of digital online media, reports that domestic advertising media billings for the agency grew to $735 million on more than 1,800 web sites in 2007, up 36 percent from 2006. Publisher web site spending slipped to 19 percent of billings, down from 24 percent in 2006. Register to receive the 2008 Digital Outlook Report and visit Jeff Lanctot’ s blog to stay informed about media trends throughout the year.

“Last year was an indicator that marketers must wisely invest their digital dollars across a broader range of web sites to keep up with the everywhere customer,” said Jeff Lanctot, editor of the report and senior vice president of Global Media at Avenue A | Razorfish. “Customers don’ t live on a handful of web sites or portals anymore. Advertisers still value large sites, but they realize the web presents a seemingly endless number of advertising options.”

The broad range of vertical web sites that saw increased traffic, included entertainment sites and those focused on video sharing, gaming, music and social networks. Growth on search engines was attributed to improved flexibility for testing advertising relevance, targeting and campaign management. The agency also continued to consolidate its spending in the ad network category with the five largest online ad networks, as billings increased to 71 percent in 2007, up from 63 percent in 2006.

The comprehensive, eight-chapter report provides commentary, predictions, research and recommendations from agency thought leaders and discipline leads across the world to help marketers improve the effectiveness of online campaigns. Specific insights from the report include:

Social Influence Marketing –examines how communities will change the way marketers do business in 2008 and whether consumers will be compensated for their social prowess.

Targeting & Measurement –explores effective ways to move beyond behavioral targeting tools that work in silos.

Search Gets Strategic –provides recommendations for how to implement multi-media search across video and rich media.

Technology Changes the World – shares inspiring examples of how marketers are using technology to become more socially responsible and accountable.

New additions to the report this year include conversations from the “Connected Class,” a sampling of 18-34-year-olds who share anecdotes of how they engage in digital media. We believe this demographic will help predict future digital behavior. The agency also shares suggestions from the leading search providers about how marketers can be successful at Local Search and engaged Forrester Research Inc., to include an excerpt from its upcoming book, “Groundswell,” which explores the way social technologies are changing the world.

Other notable highlights include the “publisher of the year” distinctions, media trends to watch, emerging opportunities in mobile, video and rich media and commentary from Clark Kokich, CEO, Avenue A | Razorfish about what the marketer of the future will look like.

Lanctot concluded, “Consumers aren’ t for sale. As digital media continues splintering in thousands of directions, the marketer who follows their consumer and engages with them in thoughtful, personal and meaningful ways will win.”

J&J Launches Animated Shorts to Reach Gen Y Mommies

Johnson & Johnson has launched an online video campaign for its baby lotion. The goal is to reach young, web-savvy moms.

The campaign emphasizes the power of a mom's touch to build a bond with her child.

J&J believes the online shorts will touch Gen Y moms in particular, because they "grew up" on the web.
The company worked with animation studio Animation Collective and actress Mariska Hargitay from NBC's Law & Order: SVU to create the shorts.

They began running on http://www.touchingbond.com last Wednesday and are promoted via video banner ads on BabyCenter, Discovery Health, TLC, Meredith publications websites, and emails sent to BabyCenter and Baby.com customer lists.

A Spanish version is also promoted on babycenter/espanol and Univision.com.

Ad Infuse Introduces First Video Advertising Solution for the iPhone

Ad Infuse Introduces First Video Advertising Solution for the iPhone

Business Wire via NewsEdge Corporation :

Advertising Writers/Business Editors/Technology Writers

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--February 6, 2008--Ad Infuse, a leader in delivering highly personalized mobile advertising experiences, today announced a new mobile advertising unit designed specifically for the Apple iPhone. The new solution enables brands to uniquely reach the millions of iPhone subscribers in the US and Europe, bringing together video and browsing formats for the first time. The company introduced the new product to meet the growing demand from top brands and premium publishers for a more visual, rich multi-media experience that can leverage the unique mobile web capabilities of the iPhone.

The new ad unit is already in production with several early advertiser and publisher partners, with global availability later this month. Ad Infuse’ s platform will now automatically recognize the iPhone, and deliver advertisements optimized specifically for that device. The multi-format capability enables advertisers to gain broader reach with their target audience, delivering presence in more areas where subscribers are spending time on the mobile device. Publishers are now able to open up more of their content for more compelling multi-format campaigns, ultimately gaining from higher revenue opportunities.

“The iPhone has undeniably set new benchmarks in providing a rich and dynamic user experience for the mobile Web,” said Liz Ross, President of Tribal DDB West, one of the world’ s top digital marketing agencies. “Being able to leverage its full potential, especially in video, is an exciting development for creating innovative and compelling ways to interact with consumers.”

Ad Infuse offers full flexibility through a choice of video, browsing, or integrated multi-format campaigns. Utilizing progressive downloading for video, the solution delivers the same user experience as streaming but with a much higher image quality, ensuring the best presentation of an advertiser’ s creative assets. Video ads and content are able to stretch and rotate with the phone without any interruption, delivering a seamless user experience. In addition, dynamic ad insertion allows real-time targeting, and advertisers can rotate multiple ads throughout a campaign to keep it fresh and interesting for consumers.

“Ad Infuse continues to spearhead innovation in rich media and multi-format advertising solutions,” said Brian Cowley, CEO of Ad Infuse. “As top publishers create content optimized for the iPhone and premium brands look to interact with consumers in exciting new ways, our new solution delivers exactly the kind of user experience and targeting capabilities the market is seeking.”

Since its debut in June 2007, almost four million iPhone’ s have been sold worldwide according to Apple. And the user experience is drawing more users to the mobile web. In a recent study by M:Metrics, almost 90 percent of iPhone owners try to access the mobile web, compared to 10 percent of regular cell-phone users.

About Ad Infuse

Ad Infuse is leading the industry in personalized mobile advertising solutions. With a technology platform that delivers relevant advertising experiences targeted to each mobile subscriber, Ad Infuse is replacing mass communications with a direct, brand-to-consumer relationship. Uniting carriers, brands, content providers and consumers, Ad Infuse is creating a marketplace for mainstream mobile media consumption. For carriers, Ad Infuse offers an ad-serving technology solution architected to protect consumer privacy and to deliver a blend of ad-supported and subscription-based premium content. For brands, Ad Infuse redefines advertising with truly dynamic ad insertion, allowing marketers to personalize their message and build a direct, high-impact relationship with the consumer. For content providers, Ad Infuse offers a path to mobile syndication supported by a balanced combination of subscription and ad-supported revenue. For consumers, Ad Infuse reveals all the possibilities that the mobile Web has to offer -- from intriguing user-generated content and games, to the latest in news stories and pop culture videos.

For more information about Ad Infuse, please visit www.adinfuse.com or call 415.315.3400.

MindBranch: "Asian Americans Online" by eMarketer February 2008

MindBranch: "Asian Americans Online" by eMarketer February 2008

M2 PressWIRE via NewsEdge Corporation :

RDATE:12022008

Asian Americans are a prime target for online marketers. As a group, they are Internet savvy and have high levels of disposable income. In 2007, there were 11 million Asian Americans online, and eMarketer projects that number will grow to nearly 14 million by 2011.

The Asian Americans Online report examines the behavior patterns of this educated, affluent and rapidly growing segment of Internet users.

US advertisers have long thought of the Asian-American market as complex and difficult to reach. Asian Americans are from a wide range of original nationalities, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian and Filipino, and they are further divided subcultures and language.

Some marketers take a fragmented approach and target each subculture separately. Others view Asian Americans as a single entity that will respond to a one-size-fits-all message.

But which strategy works best online?

Key questions the 'Asian Americans Online' report answers:

How many Asian Americans are online?

What trends affect Asian-American media consumption?

What do Asian Americans do online? Are Asian Americans online buyers, or just shoppers?

What are Asian-American attitudes toward advertising? And many others

eMarketer Reports-On Target and Up to Date

The Asian Americans Online report aggregates the latest data from marketing and communications researchers with eMarketer analysis to provide the information you need to make smart, accurate business decisions.

For full report details visit: http://www.mindbranch.com/products/R203-547.html

 

eMedTV Offers Nearly 3,000 Embeddable Health Education Videos for Free

eMedTV Offers Nearly 3,000 Embeddable Health Education Videos for Free

Market Wire via NewsEdge Corporation :

SEATTLE, WA, February 13 / MARKET WIRE/ --

eMedTV (www.emedtv.com), a health information Web site that strives to empower its users with reliable and easy-to-understand medical information, today announced that nearly 3,000 of its health education videos can now be embedded on anyone's Web site -- free of charge.

Since eMedTV launched the Web's largest library of original health education videos last year, its award-winning content has received positive response from patients and healthcare providers alike. In fact, after seeing the breadth and depth of eMedTV's professional video library, some health sites have even asked if they could license the videos.

However, Dr. Art Schoenstadt, MD, founder and president of eMedTV, wasn't interested in selling his site's content, which has taken years to create.

"While practicing medicine, I personally saw how difficult it was for patients to make informed healthcare decisions," Schoenstadt said. "The lack of health literacy in this country is a serious problem, and that's why I created eMedTV -- to ensure that health information is both easy to understand and more accessible to the public. Plus, by offering this new embeddable feature for free, even more patients can now find the health information they truly need."

Only about 36 percent of America's adults have a basic or below basic health literacy, according to the U.S. Department of Education's National Assessment of Adult Literacy from 2003. Plus, the expense associated with low health literacy to the U.S. economy is staggering: $106 billion to $238 billion annually, according to a 2007 analysis.

"At eMedTV, we have a solution that tackles health illiteracy head on," Schoenstadt said. "In fact, studies show that interactive video-based technology improves both patient understanding and adherence."

Any Web site can now post eMedTV's videos for free -- no licensing fees are required. Similar to the embeddable feature provided by YouTube.com, users can simply find a video on eMedTV and copy the provided code for use on their own Web site. The tool is especially helpful for physicians and other healthcare providers, who can embed the videos on their own Web sites as future reference for their patients.

eMedTV's vast library of multimedia content has been used by the National Institutes of Health, as well as top medical centers within the United States and overseas. In addition, each of eMedTV's original videos and articles are produced by health, fitness and medical experts.

"Join us by making high-quality, video-based healthcare information available to as many people worldwide as possible," Schoenstadt said. "We all benefit from teaching patients how they can improve their health -- and their lives."

About eMedTV:

eMedTV is the only health information Web site that combines straight talk from medical experts with the Web's largest library of original health education videos.

eMedTV provides consumers with thousands of short videos and articles designed to quickly and easily educate them about a wide variety of diseases, treatments and procedures. The site's award-winning original content has been used by the National Institutes of Health and top medical centers both within the United States and overseas.

eMedTV is health information brought to life, online at: www.emedtv.com.

Report shows that social media may be recession-proof

Report shows that social media may be recession-proof

Despite the economic downturn, marketers will likely continue to invest in social media, according to a Forrester Research study. A combination of the cost effectiveness of many social media applications along with their ability to produce measurable results, could allow social media to not only survive but thrive in a possible recession, the report says. Social marketing may also be more resilient than traditional media. For example, Procter & Gamble's online community for adolescent girls, BeingGirl.com, is four times as effective as a similarly priced marketing program in traditional media, reports Adweek.

Aricept dominates newly diagnosed Alzheimer's disease patient share

Aricept dominates newly diagnosed Alzheimer's disease patient share

Physician familiarity and a better side effect and safety profile are among the factors leading to high Aricept prescription rates, according to a report from Decision Resources. The Eisai/Pfizer drug has a 42.4% patient share for first-line treatment for newly diagnosed Alzheimer's disease, the report says. That's compared to Novartis's Exelon, which has a 2.8% share, and Shire/Janssen/Ortho-McNeil's Razadyne with a 1.4% share. The patient share data is from a report that's part of Decision Resources' Treatment Algorithms Insight Series. The reports in the series examine different diseases and provide qualitative diagnosis and referral patterns, quantitative treatment algorithms, physician opinions, and other data.

iCrossing Study Finds the Internet is Top Resource for Health Information

iCrossing Study Finds the Internet is Top Resource for Health Information

PR Newswire via NewsEdge Corporation :

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Jan. 14 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- iCrossing (http://www.icrossing.com/), a global digital marketing company, today announced the results of "How America Searches: Health & Wellness," the latest in an ongoing series of studies commissioned by iCrossing to quantify how people search for and find information online. The report provides insights into the habits of online U.S. adults seeking information about health topics.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20051130/NYW105LOGO )

The study finds that the Internet beats doctors as the most popular resource for healthcare information, but healthcare professionals still hold the upper hand in retaining consumers' trust when addressing health-related issues and questions. The study also finds that one-third of online health searchers use social media resources, and that search engines dominate as the starting point for health care searches. The complete report, as well as past HAS studies, can be found at http://www.icrossing.com/research.

    KEY FINDINGS     * Internet is the most widely used resource for health information: 59% of       adults use online resources to obtain health and wellness information.       55% go to their doctors and 29% talk to relatives, friends or co-       workers.      * Doctors retain patients' trust: Not surprisingly, more than three-       quarters of consumers named health care professionals (primary care       physicians, specialists, nurses, and pharmacists) as their most trusted       health resource.  Internet resources, however, are considered by       respondents more trustworthy than friends/coworkers, pharmaceutical       companies and television.      * Social media an important health resource: 34% of health searchers use       social media resources to delve into health-related topics, with       Wikipedia, and online forums and message boards the most important       individual tools.  Social media holds a particular appeal for 18-to-34       year old health searchers, while overall, men appear more likely than       women to use online social media to research health and wellness issues.      * General search engines dominate: Two-thirds of online adults have used       general search engines (e.g. Google, Yahoo!, MSN and Ask) to find       health-related information, making them the default gateway for this as       well as many other topics; usage of health-specific search engines --       such as Healia, Medstory, Fealth, Kosmix and Healthline -- is minimal by       comparison.  

IMPLICATIONS

The results of "How America Searches: Health & Wellness" suggest that online resources, particularly general search engines, healthcare portals and a range of social media, play a central role is steering consumers towards care and treatment options. To take full advantage of opportunities to connect with in-market health consumers, content must be available in and optimized for a range of formats, and ideally should comprise a truly interactive component that allows consumers to socialize. In order to maximize relevancy, content should be oriented around the health topics that most preoccupy consumers, such as symptoms, treatment, conditions and wellness issues including exercise, nutrition and weight loss.

Methodology

This report presents the findings of a survey conducted among a sample of 1,084 adults comprising 513 men and 571 women 18 years of age and older. The online omnibus study was conducted twice a week among a demographically representative U.S. sample of 1,000 adults 18 years of age and older using the Greenfield Online panel. Interviewing for this survey was completed on December 3-4, 2007. The raw data was weighted by a custom designed program. Each respondent was assigned a single weight derived from the relationship between the actual proportion of the population based on U.S. Census data with its specific combination of age, sex, geographic characteristics and race and the proportion in the sample. Tabular results show both weighted and unweighted bases. Because the sample is based on those who initially self- selected for participation, no estimates of sampling error can be calculated. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to multiple sources of error, including, but not limited to sampling error, coverage error, error associated with non-response, error associated with question wording and response options, and post-survey weighting and adjustments.

EveryDay Health top-gaining Web property of 2007

EveryDay Health top-gaining Web property of 2007

Everyday Health topped comScore's list of the top-gaining Web properties of 2007. According to the data, Everyday Health was the No. 1 gaining property by percentage change in unique visitors, jumping from 2.69 million visitors in December 2006 to 12.07 million in December 2007. The site's 349% gain was driven by its acquisition of Drugs.com and other sites, said comScore. Also showing big growth in 2007 were Glam Media, which grew 213%, and iVillage.com, which gained 27%. Click the link below to read more.

Link to Comscore press release.

New microsite educates men about common cause of ED

New microsite educates men about common cause of ED

Cook Medical has launched www.MensHealthPD.com, an educational microsite about Peyronie's disease, a form of erectile dysfunction (ED) that affects more than 1.4 million men in the United States. MensHealthPD.com includes videos of healthcare experts answering the most commonly asked questions about Peyronie's disease, a searchable physician finder tied to the American Urological Association, and a Q&A forum where patients and physicians can discuss Peyronie's treatments and coping with the disease. The site also includes information about the signs, symptoms, and progression of Peyronie's disease and a list of questions to ask a doctor. According to Cook Medical, a recent study showed that more than half of primary care physicians were unsure whether any effective treatments for Peyronie's disease existed. Cook Medical makes a repair graft for Peyronie's disease, according to its Web site.

 

Boomers feel young but are neglecting age-related health issues

Boomers feel young but are neglecting age-related health issues

Although baby boomers feel younger than their age, they may be overlooking age-related health issues. Energizer Holdings (yes, the battery company) conducted a survey of baby boomers and found that 64% feel younger than their chronological age, and 55% feel healthier than their parents did when they were the same age. Although 57% reported that they eat healthy, and 41% regularly exercise, 46% have never had their hearing checked despite the fact that 33.3% said they think that they might have hearing loss. Also, the National Center for Health Statistics shows that half of Americans aged 55–64 have high blood pressure, and two out of five are obese.

WonderHowTo.com Launches Web's Biggest How-To Video Site...

WonderHowTo.com Launches Web's Biggest How-To Video Site

Business Wire via NewsEdge Corporation :

Business Editors/Internet Writers

SANTA MONICA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--January 30, 2008--www.WonderHowTo.com, the video guide for a curious world, has unveiled the world’ s biggest free how-to video index, cataloging and linking to more than 90,000 curated video clips at launch. The company has also closed a Series “A” investment led by General Catalyst Partners and ad sales will be powered by Scripps Networks. The announcements were made today by Stephen Chao, co-founder and CEO, WonderHowTo. Financial terms of the investment were not disclosed.

“At WonderHowTo.com, our passion is to search, curate and organize the fascinating but fragmented category of free and informative video that has recently become widely available on the web,” said Chao. “There is a quiet yet thrilling revolution happening in the how-to video world. Historically, people have spent around a billion dollars a year in the U.S. buying instructional videos about fitness, self-help, dancing, languages, auto repair, gardening and all kinds of other things. But the market forces of the internet are swiftly liberating the realm of video just as they liberated text a few years ago. As our community grows, WonderHowTo will become the free video guide for a curious world.”

WonderHowTo.com’ s team of pre-launch video curators has amassed an impressive collection of free, high-quality how-to video features from the farthest reaches of the Internet, classifying and ranking more than 90,000 videos in more than 400 categories over the last few months. With today’ s public launch, WonderHowTo.com will also begin accepting community submissions of new videos and soliciting user ratings of videos featured on the site.

During his successful career as a television executive, Chao left an imprint on the primetime landscape that persists today. As a young programmer at Fox, he commissioned Cops, created America’ s Most Wanted, and earned a reputation for creating commercial success by pushing boundaries and questioning conventional wisdom. Chao rose to president of Fox Television, and later held the same position at USA Cable where he launched Monk.

“WonderHowTo’ s content and community-centric approach to the web how-to video sector makes it a very attractive investment for us,” said George Bell, special venture partner, General Catalyst Partners. “Add to that the opportunity to work with Stephen, one of the great explorers in the media business, and it’ s easy to see why we became enamored with this company.”

WonderHowTo.com aggregates community-submitted links and reviews of how-to video from across the Internet. From mainstream queries such as how to tie a tie, to the eye-opening presentation of how to perform a Balducci levitation, to the long-tail eccentricity of how to train your cat to use the toilet, WonderHowTo embraces the ever expanding visual imagination of the collective web to provide the most comprehensive and revelatory results in the instructional video space.

Ad sales for the site are managed by Scripps Networks. Because videos on WonderHowTo are organized into extremely targeted categories, the site offers outstanding opportunities for contextually relevant advertising placements. On the content side, Scripps Networks has provided WonderHowTo with thousands of video assets from its library.

"Scripps Networks is already a leading web content publisher in this space and WonderHowTo dovetails perfectly with our distribution strategy of continuing to make our videos even more widely and easily accessible to do-it-yourself enthusiasts," said Doug Hurst, senior vice president and general manager of non-linear distribution for Scripps Networks. "We felt right away that WonderHowTo’ s vision of community-powered universal search for online instructional video would be a good fit for us and have been working together since April 2007 to index thousands of the best video clips from our networks - HGTV, Food Network, DIY Network and Fine Living - at WonderHowTo."

"With more than 400 categories of how-to video and continually expanding coverage of the long-tail curiosities of the web, WonderHowTo offers marketers a tremendously flexible ad targeting framework," said Jeff Meyer, senior vice president of interactive ad sales for Scripps Networks. "We are excited to add this site to the multi-dimensional solutions that the Scripps Networks Ad Sales team presents to advertisers. Marketers realize that those actively seeking how-to content are also actively seeking purchasing advice and information."

Kip Kay, the all-time top video publisher and earner on short-form online video site Metacafe said, “It was easy to submit my library of instructional videos to WonderHowTo, and the site does a great job of organizing and spotlighting my material. Every video view on WonderHowTo registers directly on my Metacafe channel, which results in more money in my pocket. I am excited to see such an outstanding community-powered search tool begin to centralize the how-to video search experience.”

By pointing to how-to video around the web, rather than hosting the videos, the ad-supported site sidesteps the cost structure issues that face many other online video communities. In addition, the company’ s approach enhances the monetization strategies deployed by pioneering content owners by increasing traffic and video views for publishers. WonderHowTo’ s dynamic user feedback and continuous web spidering keep the site’ s video index current by organizing new material and suspending any expired, broken, or otherwise misleading links.

In head-to-head tests, WonderHowTo’ s human-powered indexing and ranking mechanism consistently provides how-to video search results of significantly better quality and accuracy than existing general purpose web search engines.

Analysis of available data suggests that U.S. special interest instructional videos approach $1 billion in retail and direct-to-consumer sales annually. Additionally, the tremendous growth of special interest cable networks and the larger do-it-yourself movement suggest a very robust marketplace for informational content. Meanwhile, in the web search arena, Hitwise.com, the online competitive intelligence service, reported recently that “how-to” queries on the web have risen nearly 20% since the start of 2007, confirming that the consumer appetite for how-to knowledge continues to spill over from traditional media to the web.

About WonderHowTo.com

WonderHowTo.com is the video guide for a curious world. The privately-held company was founded in 2007 by Stephen Chao and Mike Goedecke, and is backed by Cambridge, MA-based General Catalyst Partners. Chao is a media industry veteran, and Goedecke is the founder of Belief, an award-winning broadcast design firm. WonderHowTo.com is headquartered in Santa Monica, CA. For more information, visit www.wonderhowto.com.

About General Catalyst Partners

General Catalyst Partners is a venture capital firm that invests in exceptional entrepreneurs who are building the technology-based companies that will lead innovation and transform industries. Founded in 2000, General Catalyst Partners leverages its principals' extensive operational, business development and technological expertise to provide portfolio companies with a catalyst for success through business-building and partnership development assistance. General Catalyst has approximately $1 billion under management and is headquartered in Cambridge, MA. For more information, visit www.generalcatalyst.com.

REMICADE EXAMPLE:

http://www.wonderhowto.com/diet-health/prescription-drugs-pharamceuticals-video/how-to-find-relief-for-psoriasis-5301/

Manhattan Research service goes beyond consumer online numbers

Manhattan Research service goes beyond consumer online numbers

Analysis of online pharma resources, company and product Web sites, search engine use, and social networking are some of the topics covered in Manhattan Research's latest research and advisory service, ePharma Consumer. The online study of U.S. consumers, available now for subscribing clients, includes more than five years worth of trended data and insight from Manhattan Research. Other topics include DTC advertising, utilization and trust of online prescription information, blogs, podcasts, and wikis. "The study ePharma Consumer was built as a result of numerous conversations with our largest clients who wanted to go above and beyond typical server and media usage data," said Mark Bard, president of Manhattan Research. Rather than asking whether sites are being used, Bard said pharma companies now want to know what kinds of consumers are using their sites, how they use them, and what they do when they leave.

Learn more about ePharma Consumer by clicking below:

http://www.manhattanresearch.com/products/Strategic_Advisory/ePC/