Pharma bloggers are abuzz with the news that Peter Rost is replacing Jim Edwards as writer for BrandweekNRX. Writes Peter:
Clearly some of things I have written in the past on Question Authority are more fitting for Brandweek, and some are less so. It will be interesting to see if the more fitting material drives traffic to Brandweek, or if people really want to read the more unprintable material right here . . .So now you have to read two blogs.
So, will people do as Peter wishes and read him at both blogs?
Peter’s Question Authority is currently ranked #42 in the Healthcare 100. Among pharma bloggers, only John Mack and Jack Friday rank higher. BrandweekNRX, meanwhile, has struggled; it’s currently sitting at #169.
BrandweekNRX is particularly hurting in Bloglines subscribers, earning just one point in this category. According to Bloglines, BrandweekNRX’s Feedburner feed has a total of EIGHT Bloglines subscribers. That’s not exactly Perez Hilton numbers.
So, can Peter lift NRX from the blog bowels to the top of the pharma blogosphere?
Only time will tell. But to help you keep track, we’re going to post a weekly “Rost Watch” right here, letting you know how far PeterNRX has climbed the rankings from the previous week. Stay tuned.
We’re delighted to unveil a cool new widget that allows you to proudly display your place in the Healthcare 100. Check it out here.
I’ve had problems with blog widgets with long load times in the past — so I asked my programmer to see what he could do to make the new Healthcare 100 widget load as quickly as possible. Apparently, one reason that many widgets are slow to load is that they’re JavaScript-based and require processing time on both the sending and receiving end. We built the Healthcare 100 widget so that all the work is done on our end, meaning it should load very quickly on your blog or Web site.
We’ve been truly gratified by the response to the Healthcare 100. Here are a few comments from health and medical blogs:
Health Care Law Blog: “The list includes many of the top health blogs and is well worth scanning if you are interested in what is happening in the world of health and medical blogs … Cary Byrd, founder of the company, gets points for his creation of the global ranking as a way to drive traffic and make others aware of edrugsearch.com. Good classic marketing to bloggers.”
PharmaGossip: “Great idea Cary!”
Medgadget: “The Medical blogosphere is a growing community of vital, insightful voices. We have an opportunity to fundamentally change the way health information is communicated. Medical blogs should be surveyed, scrutinized, categorized… but not ranked. But… If someone is going to rank them… We’re glad we’re at the top.”
Fat Doctor: “I’m familiar with a few of those ranked 1-130. I’ll have to go see what makes the other blogs so much better than this one. Expect major changes around here as I try to move up the ranking. Or not. I’m not sure I care one bit!”
Concepts in Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Rehab: “Although the site has a ranking system that may not be the most scientific, it does provide the reader with a chance to survey all the healthcare blogs now available. Remember, blogs are written by individuals or groups of individuals that are usually expressing an opinion about a particular topic. In the case of medical, healthcare, or scientific blogs, these have not undergone the scrunity of peer-review to help determine its contribution to the scientific literature. They, however, can be thought-provoking and challenging to our assumptions.”
Open Medicine Blog: “eDrugSearch.com, a commericial online pharmacy, and free source of drug information for consumers, has come up with an ingenious marketing plan — it has come up with a list of the world’s Top 100 Medical blogs. Even if you don’t trust dot.com sites … you have to admit it garners attention.”
One note on OM Blog’s post: We’re not a commercial online pharmacy. We’re a search engine and community for online pharmacy consumers.
We’re going to work very hard to keep the Healthcare 100 current, comprehensive and accurate. Thank you for the many words of encouragement and support!
I’d like to thank all of you who have posted about the Healthcare 100 and who have submitted your own or other blogs to the list. We’ve added more than 50 blogs to the list since Thursday and encourage you to keep them coming. Thank you!
By now many of you have already noticed the Healthcare 100, eDrugSearch.com’s little contribution to the health and medical blogosphere. Here’s some of the thought behind this project:
1. The blogosphere is crazy big and getting bigger every day, with Technorati tracking tens of millions of blogs of various levels of quality, posting frequency, entertainment value, etc.
2. If you’re interested in blogs about a particular subject — in my case, health and medical blogs — Technorati is not an ideal resource for finding them. The reason is that Technorati’s blog tagging system lets users determine in which categories (up to 20) their blog belongs. As a result, if you run a blog search for any healthcare-related term, you’ll have to sort through many, many blogs that have relatively little to do with healthcare.
3. I’ve also found the healthcare blog world to be very fragmented. As a group, we have far less blog “juice” than, say, tech blogs or political blogs or gossip blogs or marketing blogs. This is aggravated by the fact that healthcare blogs have subdivided into some pretty tight niches, so — for example — if you’re a pharma blogger like me, you could blog for several months (as I have) and never discover some of the great non-pharma medical blogs.
My hope is that the Healthcare 100 will serve to increase the influence of ALL health and medical blogs by making it easier for bloggers, blog readers and the media to find us — and to see what a thriving corner of the blogosphere we are when viewed as a single, if diverse, community.
As I explain here, the Healthcare 100 ranking system is based on an algorithm created by marketing blogger Todd And. Todd has been extremely gracious in helping us set up the Healthcare 100, and we are grateful to him. The Healthcare 100 is automated, so Technorati rankings, Google PageRank and Bloglines subscribers are pulled by the system on an ongoing basis. That means I should have at least a little time left to do my real job.
Oh — and here’s what I need YOU to do.
1. If your blog’s not included, I’m sorry — believe me, it wasn’t an intentional oversight, I just haven’t found you yet. So please add your blog now! It’ll take you 30 seconds.
2. If you’re going to complain about the Healthcare 100, that’s fine — I welcome it, because I want to make it better. But please be specific, rather than taking a general swipe, so I’ll know what I need to fix. I welcome your suggestions at
3. One issue I’m currently working to fix is that I’m afraid, in at least a few cases, I may not have used a blog’s primary RSS feed for Bloglines purposes. If your Bloglines subscriber ranking looks off, please e-mail me and I’ll be happy to work with you to make sure your ranking is correct.
That goes for ANYTHING about your ranking that looks off to you, by the way. I’m happy to discuss it with you. More than anything, I want the Healthcare 100 to be as accurate as possible.
Dr. Kevin Pho is a hero to health and medical bloggers everywhere, because his blog, Kevin, M.D., has done so much to increase interest in our little corner of the blogosphere. Kevin offers a candid view of problems in the U.S. healthcare system from a doctor’s perspective — and unlike many medical bloggers who are rightly fearful of employer reprimand or legal reprisals, he is able to put his name and face by his opinions.
Kevin is such a medblog idol, in fact, that he has even inspired poetry from other physician bloggers.
We asked Kevin about the origins of Kevin, M.D., some of his readers’ favorite posts, and his plans for the future.
Cary: What inspired you to start Kevin M.D.? Are you blogging for the same reasons today, or have your purpose and/or goals evolved over time?
Kevin: I started Kevin, M.D. in May of 2004. At first, it was a way to “pull back the curtain” and have the public take a look at the issues facing physicians today. Gradually, the blog has evolved into a forum where current hot topics are blogged, debated, and discussed. During this process, attention is given to various issues that are important from a physicians’ perspective. Health care reform is an issue that won’t go away anytime soon. The fear is that many of the changes will occur without physician input. My blog is a way to give physicians a voice during the upcoming changes.
Cary: Of all the topics you write about, what areas of healthcare seem to be of greatest interest to your readers? What topics are the most controversial?
Kevin: Since the beginning of time, physicians and lawyers have different priorities and goals, leading to historically dissonant views. Any topic pertaining to defensive medicine, tort reform, malpractice premiums will always bring out the two sides in passionate debate.
Discussion of the different approaches to covering the uninsured, and whether the government should play a greater role in health care also is a hot area. I try to give my posts an air of controversy to spark debate. By doing so, it will bring attention to important healthcare issues that mainstream media may ignore or minimize.
Cary: Do you have an all-time favorite post?
Kevin: I have almost 7,000 posts to date. It is difficult to choose one favorite. In terms of the most commented post, it has to be the one where I talked about a case about someone eating a lot of ice. It has blossomed into a support group of sorts, with almost 300 comments.
Two other series consistently garner significant attention. The first would be the “I practiced defensive medicine today,” a series of posts where I invited other providers to give sobering examples of how they ordered extra tests to protect themselves from possible malpractice litigation.
My recent essay on defensive medicine summarizes my views on this important topic.
Another would be the “Doctors Gone Wild,” a series of oddball stories of physicians doing some ridiculous things.
Cary: What are your favorite blogs?
Kevin: I browse about 50+ medical blogs daily, looking for interesting starting points of discussion. In no particular order, here are three that I enjoy:
Fingers and Tubes in Every Orifice
Panda Bear, M.D.
Surgeonsblog
Cary: You say in your profile that the day Kevin, M.D. becomes a chore, you’ll stop writing it. Are you any closer to that day, or is it still just as enjoyable for you as when you started?
Kevin: Kevin, M.D. is still going strong. I am fortunate to be in a position where my employer supports my blogging endeavors, so I can avoid the recent controversies about being “outed” in the blogosphere. I am also thankful for my loyal readers, who waste no time supporting or disagreeing with what I say.
American health care and how physicians practice medicine will change significantly in the coming years, with health reform being in the forefront. If physicians don’t speak for ourselves and make our opinions known, others will make these significant decisions for us. Giving physicians a voice in this sea of change will continue to be a primary reason why I’ll continue to blog.
)