Insider Chatter by Donna Bogatin

Poor CNET? The latest woe of the vintage online property: A staff writer ”reports” being jilted at a cross-country media altar by Google CEO Eric Schmidt, even while acknowledging the “absurdity of flying 2,500 miles to interview a guy who works about 40 miles from” her office.

Nevertheless, CNET Editor-In-Chief, newly bumped up Dan Farber, jumps on Elinor Mill’s personal bandwagon, even while acknowledging the CNET approved “dispatch” of a CNET writer to “Mickey Mouse” land, apparently with little more than naive dreams of Google headline glory for backup.

Farber likens Schmidt to Putin for ”stonewalling,” echoing Mill’s protestations that she was unexpectedly “stunted” by the Google CEO, despite ardently having ”always wanted to interview Google CEO Eric Schmidt one-on-one.”

Mills admits she got her chance, and, incredulously, offers up a public play-by-play on how she blew it!

Contrary to the CNET double-team against Schmidt, the Google CEO “one-on-one” accorded the CNET staffer was not a fiasco because of what Farber suggests is Google arrogance. It is CNET’s Mills who dropped the ball on her shot at Googley glory by being unable to pose any in-depth, significant questions about the known purpose of the supposed CNET “exclusive”: A discussion of Google Health.

Mills claims she ”dove in with several probing questions about Google Health.” CNET’s version of “probing questions,” however, present as softball opportunites for Eric Schmidt to talk standard Google Health speak. What’s more, Mills neglected to pursue follow-up question opportunities to gain real, new, hard data and information.

The first (not so) hard hitting Google Health question Mills asked of Schmidt: “Was it difficult for Google to get health industry players like Aetna, Quest Diagnostics, and Walgreens onboard?”

Mills reports of Schmidt’s response:

“It took a while,” he said, adding that Google lined up health experts to be on an advisory health council and they are integrating their systems to work with Google’s GData. “It was OK. It wasn’t that hard.”

IT WAS OK. IT WASN’T THAT HARD are non-answers, not deserving of publication. Mills ought to have continued on: Why did it take a while? Were obstacles encountered? What objections were raised? Has any organization declined to collaborate? If yes, why?

Also, GDATA: What about it? How will the “integration” work? How will privacy and security be protected by Google? Mills ought to have really probed.

The CNET-Google problem is NOT that Eric Schmidt only had 12 minutes to only discuss Google Health with a CNET staffer. The Google-CNET problem is that Elinor Mills failed to take professional advantage of the opportunity she had to contribute to enhancing public knowledge about the real workings of Google’s Health initiative.

CEO Eric Schmidt himself alluded to Mill’s less than insightful queries:

I don’t think you have highlighted sufficiently the platform characteristic of this. Everyone is assuming it is personal health record…I think of it as a platform upon which many services can be built and it is through that platform that the real innovation occurs.

Here at Insider Chatter, I have indeed been investigating the platform wars that consumer-facing online health applications are engendering. For example, I scooped Microsoft’s Health Vault solicitation to Google to collaborate with the Microsoft platform!

SEE:  Health Vault: Hey, Google, Get With the Microsoft Medical Program! and Microsoft Seeks Healthy Relationship with Google: Health Vault INTERVIEW

Is Google open to Microsoft HealthVault’s openness though? Not likely. On the very day of Eric Schmidt’s keynote at HMSS in Florida, the Microsoft Health Vault team confirmed to me:  There’s been no formal conversations to-date between Google Health and Microsoft.

MORE:  Why Google Sites Is BAD Business: ‘Til Death Do Us Part’? and Microsoft Flexes Enterprise Muscle: What Google Apps Revolution? and Spot Runner Ad Agency: Google Sans $139 billion Search Engine? and Facebook: Why Sheryl Sandberg is a Perfect Googley Fit

PLUS: PAY PER BLOG? WHAT KILLER BUSINESS MODEL?

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN 

Is Microsoft HealthVault bracing for a Google Health frontal assualt? NO! Welcome to the online consumer health care empowerment party, so indicates the Microsoft Health Solutions Group.

On the heels of a Microsoft strategic collaboration announcement with Mayo Clinic to together “put the patient and the consumer in control,” and with Google’s health portal ambitions looming, I asked the HealthVault team to reflect on the state of Microsoft’s consumer health care initiatives. 

Below is the EXCLUSIVE Insider Chatter Q & A interview with Microsoft Health Solutions.

INSIDER CHATTER: Is the Microsoft-Mayo Health Vault agreement exclusive, or can a service such as prospective direct competitor Google Health also work with Mayo Clinic to develop online health tools?

MICROSOFT: While Microsoft and Mayo have announced that they have entered into a strategic agreement to collaboratively develop tools that will empower people to manage their health and become engaged partners with their providers in a new model of health care, this agreement is not exclusive for either Mayo or Microsoft.

INSIDER CHATTER: Google Health’s debut is rumored to be imminent, as per Google’s advisement last fall. Does Microsoft believe Health Vault has achieved a meaningful head start over Google?

MICROSOFT: Transforming healthcare is an incredibly complex challenge – one which no single organization can solve alone. As Microsoft tackles the challenge of merging healthcare with the internet, we are working with dozens of other innovative organizations. We are excited about Google and others joining this space and making their offerings Health Vault compatible. This isn’t a race with Google, it’s about Microsoft delivering on its vision and working with partners.

INSIDER CHATTER: What is the traction of Health Vault to date? What are the metrics regarding consumer searches, consumer account creation, consumer record uploads?

MICROSOFT: The focus at this time is on recruiting partners to develop services on the HealthVault platform for consumers. While we aren’t disclosing the actual number of users, we can tell you that we have a growing base of early adopters, industry partners, applications and devices.

INSIDER CHATTER: Which health organizations have partnered with Health Vault to date? What are the types of industry partnerships created?

MICROSOFT: We are currently working with dozens of partners across various categories – from leading medical providers, health management device manufacturers, and national health agencies – who are building solutions that will spur health innovation and better transform healthcare. There were 16 partners live at launch with beta implementations. These only scratch the surface of the possibilities that lie ahead that will come from partners across the health ecosystem. We anticipate there will be a wide range of partners across various categories building solutions that will spur health innovation and better transform healthcare. Below are the currently-launched partners.

Devices
•           LifeScan – A Johnson & Johnson company
•           Microlife Corporation
•           Omron Healthcare, Inc.
•           Polar
 
Applications
•           Allscripts
•           American Heart Association
•           Healthy Circles LLC
•           CapMed
•           Kryptiq
•           MEDSEEK
•           MedStar Health
•           Peaksware, LLC
•           PureWellness
•           Sound Health Solutions
•           US Wellness, Inc.
•           HealthMedia

GOOGLE: The consumer health care ball is in YOUR oline court! 

ALSO: Got a Web 2.0 Startup? Microsoft Wants YOU!

PLUS: Google CEO In-Car Radio Ad Vision Fading and Google TV Ads Auction: NO AdWords Buyer’s Remorse and Yahoo Shareholder on Microsoft Bid: AOL, Time Warner All Over Again?

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Microsoft has already unveiled its consumer health portal–HealthVault–and continues to plow ahead with its mission to “improve health through software technology,” most recently via the acquisition of a “state-of-the-art-health information system” from Global Care Solutions (GCS), a Bangkok-based company that develops enterprise-class health systems.

The Microsoft goal with the deal is to “power developing and emerging hospital systems around the globe” by improving workflow and patient safety, according to Peter neupert, VP, Health Solutions Group. GCS has implemented an end-to-end system at Bumrungrad International hospital:

An internationally accredited facility based in Bangkok, the hospital treats more than 1.2 million patients from 190 countries each year. The GCS solution efficiently manages clinical workflow, billing, regulatory compliance and medical records. Microsoft will continue to work closely with Bumrungrad to further build out the functionality and features of the GCS technology.

Where does Google stand on empowering consumers and/or supporting institutions in the delivery of health care? We won’t know precisely before next year, but the public pronouncements of the temporary Google Health Archtitect–Marissa Mayer–reveal a possible kindler, gentler Google Health is in the works than what her predecessor Adam Bosworth had in store for Google’s medical plans.

Google wants to improve life for physicians, Mayer has advised:

The goal for a lot of dcotors is how many patients they can see in a day. That means their minutes per patient has got to go down, and the less time they have to spend finding and going over patient records the better. Ultimately we will design a product that’s useful for users, and also helps doctors to do their job more quickly and efficiently.

Mayer’s empathetic reachout to MDs contrasts with the more menacing outlook presented by Bosworth, as I analyze in Google Health: Lambast Doctors, Sell Medical Ads.

Bosworth on how the American public is at big medical risk, in drastic need of Google intervention: “There are roughly 5000 preventable medical errors a day taking place at doctor’s offices.”

While Googler Mayer may have a much more Googley sounding public stance than Bosworth did, Microsoft continues, nevertheless, to take the medical lead in the Redmond vs. Mountain View medical battle.

MORE: Google vs. Wal-Mart in Electronic Health Record Battle for Consumers and HealthVault: Microsoft to Beat Google Medical Search Thanks to MOM!

ALSO: Google AdSense: Dawn of the Web’s Bloopers and Business Plans Help the Web 2.0 Kool-Aid Go Down

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

When my fellow panelist at last week’s Council for Entrepreneurial Development Tech 2007 conference in Research Triangle, Eric Auchard, Reuters, warned the audience, “don’t believe everything you read in the media,” I got a chuckle from the same audience when I pointed out, “but Eric, you ARE the media!”

Eric may be on to something, though, if big media player CMP Media’s Information Week report today direct from the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco is any indication!

Richard Martin, for Information Week, on the Google-Microsoft “race to bring the resources of the Internet to personalized health care”:

Microsoft has not publicly disclosed its plans for a health-related product, but is said to be working on an offering that combines software with an online component.

“We’re building a broad consumer health platform,” Steve Shihadeh, general manager of Microsoft’s health solutions group, told The New York Times in August.

BUT, what did MICROSOFT TELL THE WORLD on October 4, 2007, i.e, what did it “disclose” while LAUNCHING IT’S ‘HEALTH-RELATED PRODUCT,’ Microsoft HealthVault?

Hey, Richard, read all about it, here at Insider Chatter: HealthVault: Microsoft to Beat Google Medical Search Thanks to MOM!

What makes CMP (major) Media’s glaring reporting inadequacy all the more inexcusable is that the Web 2.0 Summit that CMP staffer Martin ought to be providing the definitive word on is actually PRODUCED BY CMP MEDIA, in conjunction with O’Reilly Media, AND SPONSORED BY MICROSOFT, to boot!

What’s more, Tim O’Reilly, himself, was most concerned this morning over the chutzpah of Michael Arrington to “scoop” him at his own conference, run (and the plot thickens) in partnership with O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 Summit partner, who is ALSO Arrington’s TechCrunch ad network vendor, John Battelle, aka Federated Media!

AND, on Tuesday, Web 2.0 O’Reilly mused out loud about the entire (non?) meaning of Arrington’s Web 2.0 TechCrunch!:

TechCrunch is the #1 site on the Techmeme leaderboard, yet most of what it covers will be forgotten not merely in years but in months, and have proven to be completely unimportant: the froth of me-too company creation around ideas and trends that as yet are quite immature and poorly understood. (Michael Arrington himself told me that most of the companies he’s covered since starting Techcrunch “have just faded away”.)

Web 2.0 coverage that TechCrunch dedicates itself to is “completely unimportant” in the words of the Web 2.0 meme creator himself, O’Reilly? AND, O’Reilly concurrs with Arrington that the hundreds of companies TechCrunch champions “just fade away”?

PLUS, Web 2.0 is but “immature froth” comprised of “me-too” companies that are “poorly misunderstood”, in the words of Tim Web 2.0 O’Reilly? HAS TIM BEEN READING INSIDER CHATTER???

BUT, isn’t the O’Reilly-Battelle Web 2.0 team supposed to make sure Web 2.0 IS understood???

If Web 2.0 O’Reilly is correct about Web 2.0 Arrington, though, why then did 100 startups pour their hearts, souls and (travel) money into the TechCrunch40 demo pit???

ANYWAY, Google’s medical push is now under the auspices of Marissa Mayer (the new and improved Google Health Architect?) and she is undoubtedly reminding her Googley troops (90 minutes a day) of that old Avis slogan: We’re number two so “WE TRY HARDER!”

YAY! And the Web 2.0 world turns, under the banners of CMP Media, O’Reilly Media, Federated Media, TechCrunch Network….

SEE: CED Tech 2007: 30 Cool Startups, But NO Facebook Apps

PLUS: BREAKING: Commtouch CEO on Spam MP3 Files Attack (Britney Spears NOT So Friendly) and Google Q3 Planetary Gains: Every Country AND The Cloud

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

HealthVault: On the heels of Google losing its touchy-feely, NBC ER drama worthy Google Health evangelist–Adam Bosworth–Microsoft picks up the tried and true “moms and babies” and “dying grandma” pulling of the heart strings slack in launching its attack on the multi trillion dollar medical services business.

In unveiling its new HealthVault software and services healthcare ecosystem play today, Microsoft showed “faces of women that want a health information system that puts them at the center with their families.”

Over 8 million people search for health information online daily, Peter Neupert, corporate vice president of the Health Solutions Group at Microsoft said.

BUT, ARE THEY REALLY ALL WOMEN? Microsoft unveiled its HealthVault to the world as if they are: “Remember its all about mom,” Neupert asserted.

Really? What about the twenty something professional, or the independent thriving senior, or, even MEN, married, single or otherwise! Does THEIR health not matter” Can men and single women NOT take care of themselves!

NO, it is all about the challenges faced by MOMs, at least in Microsoft’s positioning of its new high-powered, who needs Google Health push; Hey, when daughter “Debbie is playing at school,” MOM needs to be only a mouse click away to ensure access to Deb’s Personal Health Record, the Microsoft version!

True to form, the only visual on the Microsoft HealtVault portal homepage is a kissing and smiling “mom and child” pair!

Inconsistenly, though, in demoing actual use case scenarios, Microsoft showed an adult MALE patient taking control of his own health management with high-tech tools, and he managed quite well, WITHOUT MOM! Did Microsoft feel MOM was maybe not really up to the tech task?

Microsoft’s HealthVault is a three prong offering: 1) Private search experience, 2) Secure shared data repositry, 3) User connection Web portal.

For Neupert, HealthVault represents a “new and improved health delivery system” heralding a “broad democratization” of the U.S. medical sector. In other, usually Googley words, the “consumerization” of healthcare.

Microsoft’s “consumer-centric” pitch:

HEALTHVAULT ACCOUNT–The revolutionary and FREE way to collect, store, and share your health information with Web sites and doctors.

DIRECT INPUT: Enter your personal information, upload health documents, and create records for members of your family. It’s time to digitize the doctor’s office “clipboard”.

YOUR DOCTORS: Your whole healthcare provider team — from MDs to Chiropractors — are generating information about your health. You should have a copy of that information so that you can share it with all of them.

PRESCRIPTIONS: Medications need to be managed and renewed and, if your MD is e-prescribes, HealthVault can collect and store your medication history.

IMAGING & LAB RESULTS: Your images and lab results may also be a part of your health record, and HealthVault helps you keep copies of them inyour account.

HEALTH PLAN: Add the Personal Health Record information stored at your health plan to your HealthVault account.

WHO NEEDS GOOGLE HEALTH THEN? If it EVER launches!

Microsoft HealthVault is MORE than a high-powered Personal Health Record platform though:

PERSONAL HEALTH DEVICES: Connect a wide variety of HealthVault compatible devices from partners to your PC, and upload the data to your HealthVault account.

Microsoft has the resources, the technology, the partners and the will, to lead a PC-driven health revolution.

Will Redmond have the “MOMs” on its side, though?

ALSO: Mahalo Faces Vertical Human Search Attack: OrganizedWisdom Health and Facebook vs. LinkedIn: Who has the Women? 

PLUS: Y Combinator to Hackers: Dream SMALL and Code for Google on the Cheap

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Jason Calacanis may believe he can dictate the entire future of Web 3.0 in his own Mahalo vision for the Internet to acquiesce to. Steven Krein, however, believes that Calacanis’ Mahalo now is officially vulnerable vertically, thanks to Krein’s OrganizedWisdom. 

The OrganizedWisdom.com homepage is “inspired” by Google. Its touted WisdomCard “hand-edited, spam-free search results pages” look as if “inspired” by Mahalo, the self-described “human-powered search engine.”

Mahalao and OrganizedWisom also share Web 1.0 roots: Both are the products of entrepreneurs who made their Internet marks the first Web go around. Mahalo is a Calacanis production, OrganizedWisdom is led by Krein, the man behind Promotions.com in 1996.

Krein demoed his new OrganizedWisdom last evening at the NY Tech Meetup. While Calacanis is aiming to recruit humans to “write result pages” for “the top 20,000 search terms,” Krein has set a goal of driving the “curation” of 10,000 health focused WisdomCards over the next 12 months; At launch the service includes pages on “more than 100 of the most popular health topics.”

I asked Krein how he compensates OrganizedWisdom “guides” and keeps the “Cards” up to date: 1) $10-$15 per WisdomCard developed and 2) Staff editors monitor developed pages.

OrganizedWisdom obviously can not diss the Mahalo model, as they emulate it. Krein CAN claim superiority in his own health vertical, however, as he does loud and proud. For one big thing, there is an MD on board, Howard Krein, Chief Medical Officer. According to Dr. Krein:

No other search engine has physicians guiding every search result. Each and every WisdomCard is reviewed by at least one physician. 

A search for “necrotizing fasciitis” (aka flesh eating bacteria) on the two sites backs up OrganizedWisdom’s we trump Mahalo health search queries claim.

While Mahalo has not written a result page for flesh eating bacteria “yet,” OrganizedWisdom has organized top picks for “necrotizing fasciitis.”

Currently financed by founders and management, Krein said OrganizedWisodom will soon close a Series A round of venture funding.

Krein has not claimed to drive Web 3.0, as competitor Calacanis does, BUT he has made an OrganizedWisdom claim to own the health vertical in the human search battle, at the expense of Mahalao (be it Web version 1, 2 or 3!).

ALSO READ CEO INTERVIEW: Google Health at Risk: Healthline Medical Search Snags Power Partners, and Money

PLUS: HealthVault: Microsoft to Beat Google Medical Search Thanks to MOM!

ALSO:Mint CEO on Web 2.0 Nonsense AND Who Needs Wesabe: INTERVIEW and Y Combinator to Hackers: Dream SMALL and Code for Google on the Cheap

AND: Social Fireworks Alert: LinkedIn vs. ‘Loud Mouth McClure’?

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN