Cyberchondriacs

Apparently, a factor in our own market success of Kosmix Health has to do with the rise of the Cyberchondriacs. Cyberchondriacs being those people that turn to the web as a first resource for their health concerns. The rise of the cyberchondriac is remarkable, about 37% increase over two years, totaling 160 million wellness seekers in 2006.

It would be overly humble to assume to stand in the background while editorial sites are revered as the true destination for cyberchondriacs. Kosmix Health is uniquely suited to the plight of the cyberchondriac because we aren’t an editorial site with a limited index of information, nor are we a broad faced search product. We wear the clothes of the editorial product in our UI but have the algorithm powering our product to categorize all the deep health content on the web. With the topic home page, you aren’t reliant on one reliable source, nor do you have to scour search results; we’ve got the health web broken down into high level information such as blogs, news, images, and video; but also have unique breakdowns such as treatments and symptoms.

In a recent Reuters article, Harris Interactive noted, “Cyberchondriacs are not only using the Internet to educate themselves, many are also using it to assist in their conversation with their physicians,” and at Kosmix Health we hope we give all the resources, organized easily, to facilitate meaningful exchanges in that valuable time spent with your physician.

To read further on the cyberchondriacs, check out:
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2007/tc2007081_494616.htm
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSPAR10595820070801

–Matthew Krajewski