Social media FTW: Mayo Clinic offers preferred early access to journalists and bloggers to health news

The newly launched "Mayo Clinic News Network" is billed as the journalists' multimedia source for health, science and research information: http://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org

The no cost, password-protected site for journalists offers the latest breaking medical news, videos, graphics, links for background, animation, experts and patient interviews. Journalists from TV, radio, newspaper, blogs, and mobile platforms are invited to visit our site http://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org and register. Pending approval, you will have access to this rich source of multimedia content.



I feature high-quality videos from Mayo Clinic on CasesBlog 2-3 times per month, and after some brief consideration I registered and applied for access. I will let you know if a medical blog with 7 million page views qualifies for access to the Mayo Clinic News Network or not (update: the application was approved).

The flagship journal of ACP, Annals of Internal Medicine, already includes medical bloggers in their embargoed news release before each new issue.

The ACP Internist website took a step further and includes guest posts from hand-picked medical bloggers (disclaimer: I am one of the selected authors). Many of the posts are quite interesting and cover a wide variety of topics. You can see for yourself here: http://blog.acpinternist.org

Kudos to the ACP editor Ryan DuBosar who is leading the medical blog initiative there: http://blog.acpinternist.org/2012/05/qd-news-every-day-nearly-1-in-8-doctors.html

Some health bloggers feel uncomfortable with Google Buzz

@drval: "I'm actually going to stay away from Buzz for a while. I like keeping my email a separate world. Will jump in if it becomes relevant."

ePatientDave: "To me what Buzz means is that Google has permanently shown themselves not qualified to be in health data. Period."

EdBennett: "I'm moving away from all Google apps. it will take time and effort, but this latest gaffe has me worried"

I use Google for most of my online work and I am not planning to change this. However, I do appreciate an alternative point of view.



Comments:

Dean Giustini - Google is throwin' everything at us and I feel buried informationally. I also don't know the point of having Google Wave & Buzz in light of Twitter and all the microblogging aggregators. I never thought it would happen: I've reach info-sat (saturation).

Tim Sturgill - I understand the concern about privacy issue and what occurred with the start of Buzz, but I have some difficulty with the notion that such a wonderful free service (Google products) somehow equates to no personal responsibility. Any privacy "breaches" with the start of Buzz were totally preventable by beforehand looking at and managing your Google profile and reading the instructions that came with the Buzz start. Could Google have done better, sure.

The irony (having had my identity stolen in the hospital I work at and was a patient) -- I'll trust Google with private info, even health info, any day of the week over healthcare entities (without a lot of upfront scrutiny).9:15 pm

Ves Dimov, M.D. - The greatest benefit is that you can actually have a conversation on Buzz, include rich media included and use groups of people to collaborate.

Twitter is an inefficient way of exchanging one-liners. It's probably good for company customer service.

There is a big difference between Buzz and Wave. Buzz is simple micro-blog & network. Google Wave is a powerful collaboration platform in early beta.

Google Wave can replace both Gmail and Google Docs. It is not easy to comprehend for many users though and it is not very intuitive. On the other hand, Google Wave has the functionality but does not have the social network of Buzz and Gmail, hence both services are needed.

The information overload is another topic beyond the scope of this discussion. As I have mentioned, Twitter and Facebook are among the most inefficient ways of information consumption. Google Reader is one of the tools to work with large volumes of info but it is not very "social".

Tim Sturgill - Should have added, any new service (or add on to existing service) should be opt-in not opt-out. So on that score alone I believe Google blew it (but only to the extent you negate any personal responsibility or your persona on the web).

Ves Dimov, M.D. - I agree with you, Tim. Yet, obviously a lot of people feel differently about Google and online privacy in general and their scrutiny is welcome.

Tim Sturgill - Wave goes beyond the web, because of XMPP -- operate independent from the web. A very powerful transport capability is introduced with Wave.

Google Buzz from a medical blogger's perspective

The blog post below was brought up by the following discussion:

Ves Dimov, M.D. - Observation: The more seasoned doctors are just joining Twitter at a time when "everybody" is leaving for Google Buzz... :)

Anne Marie Cunningham - I disagree! Twitter is still much more useful for me.

Ves Dimov, M.D. - Twitter is useful because of the great community you can find or establish there. The technical side - not so much.

Jeffrey Benabio, MD - What's your early take on Buzz, Ves?

And here it is:

Google Buzz works surprisingly well for me at this point. Considering that everybody was saying that Google "does not get social media", I did not expect that.

With Buzz, I can finally publish longer micro-blog updates on science and health news that are "blog-able", i.e. they can be used for blog posts later.

Buzz is integrated with Google Reader and has a somewhat more "human feel" than Twitter.

You can edit your posts and attach images. It's a richer media application - for example, BBC podcasts can be played directly from the Buzz update.

The quality of comments is much better on Buzz than on blogs or Twitter one-sentence replies - it is probably because people use their real names tied to a Gmail account.

The Buzz updates are fully searchable - Twitter only searches the last 7 days.

Google Buzz copied some features of Friendfeed, Facebook and Twitter. Google is committed to improving it - it's a very important product for them - make or break, in fact, considering the competition from Facebook. Buzz will be an interesting service to work with.

The adoption rate surpassed all expectations but it is still too early to say - a community is what makes a social network successful. Will see what the future brings.



Comments:

Jeffrey Benabio, MD - Insightful comments. I am stumbling through, but fell Buzz allows for higher quality interaction at "cost" of lower volume.

Arin Basu - Good point, Jeffrey. Also, if you may have noted, you cannot get "buzz" as RSS feeds, cannot mark favourite "buzz"es, cannot hashtag them, etc. Seems to me buzz and tweets belong to two different styles & perhaps each can complement the other. For example, write a longer buzz (or identify a nice buzz, note its url, shorten it, post to twitter, and hastag it for later retrieval). Something like that.

Nicholas Genes - I'm with Ves. Twitter and it's 140-char limit were designed with phones circa 2006 in mind. Buzz was designed with modern smartphones in mind. In a few weeks or months when third-party apps and integration catches up, Twitter will seem hopelessly primitive.

Karin Lewicki - Problem is, I'd been using Twitter for news and it seems perfect for that; 140 is a good limit for a headline and a link. The personal talk, meanwhile, if the most constricted was also the least interesting.

If Buzz takes us back from this new news space into more familiar gossip/chat space, I will be chalking it up as a loss.

Bloggers, too much sitting can offset the benefits of regular exercise

Participation in sport is associated with a with a 20—40% reduction in all-cause mortality compared with non-participation. Exercise might also be considered as a fifth vital sign, according to the Lancet: http://goo.gl/gyxYf

From the NYTimes:

Wrong: Sitting at your cubicle. Better: Walking while clicking and talking.

Your chair is your enemy.

It doesn’t matter if you go running every morning, or you’re a regular at the gym. If you spend most of the rest of the day sitting — in your car, your office chair, on your sofa at home — you are putting yourself at increased risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, a variety of cancers and an early death.

In other words, irrespective of whether you exercise vigorously, sitting for long periods is bad for you.

"Health Promotion" video: Benefits of exercise.

References:

Stand Up While You Read This! - Opinionator Blog - NYTimes.com
How to Exercise WHILE Blogging or Doing Other Computer Work