I received a generic-type invite to join Wellsphere. So I did. I am in the company of a number of other MSers, like A Short in the Cord's Joan. This may or may not be a good thing as far as readership goes. But it will definitely be a source of info and ideas. The nifty thing is that my blog automatically loads there. So you can find me everywhere.
I want to welcome new readers from Wellsphere. Come on in, I'll put the coffee on.
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8 comments:
Shauna,
I started getting emails and invitations from "Rutledge" last May. I was extremely skeptical and didn't like the idea of someone else benefiting (financially) from my work.
At the time, I believe that the pages were full of ads and that there was no MS community yet. They were trying to recruit and build one. Offered to put me on some 360 expert page (which I can't find now).
I think that a lot of changes have taken place on the site since last May. I wonder if I made the wrong choice to keep turning them down.
I was not impressed at all but now it looks kinda nice. However, this part of the Terms of Use gave me pause:
"When you post your own copyrightable content on the Website or give Wellsphere permission to post your copyrightable content on the Website, you retain ownership of any copyright you claim to your submitted content. However, by posting your content or giving Wellsphere permission to post your content you automatically grant Wellsphere a royalty-free, paid-up, non-exclusive, worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual license to (i) use, make, sell, offer to sell, have made, and further sublicense any such User Materials, and (ii) reproduce, distribute, create derivative works of, publicly perform and publicly display the User Materials in any medium or format, whether now known or later developed."
Let me know what you think and what your experience is.
Lisa,
Charles from MSB podcasts forwarded my name to Wellsphere a few months ago and also sent me the letter in which he recommended me.
After checking out the website and being satisfied with its presentation I decided to join once I was invited. I don't see any advertising on it so I do wonder about how they make their money. I have noticed a few folks on there hawking their own websites and this may be a source of income for the owners.
There are a few other bloggers on there I recognize from the medical blogosphere whose writing I respect and that was my deciding factor.
If Wellsphere benefits financially from my silly, though admittedly sometimes profound (cough) thoughts, then so be it.
The thing I like about sharing my blog with a wider community is that it may inspire a med student to go into the field of neurology. Or it may inspire ideas about how to solve the mystery of MS. Or it brings some measure of relief to someone else going through the same things I am. My writing a blog is mostly for me to figure things out, but if something else good comes of it, then great. If I were making a living from my writing then I would think differently.
Believe me, though, if problems arise, I won't hesitate to post about them.
S.
I too joined Wellsphere after a little research. Want to be my friend? How do I find you and send an invite?
Hi All!
I joined Wellsphere because I don't have to do anything. They just pull my stuff to their page automatically. But I have a hard time navigating so I don't use the site very much.
The look of the site and the range of material has certainly changed since last spring. At that time, there was practically no medical information and what was there focused on sports, alternative treatments, and weight loss. Things which didn't seem to fit my blog.
Shauna, I too have seen some familiar medbloggers there. But they certainly weren't there when I first researched the site.
The best info I can find about funding right now is that they started with at least $3 million in venture capital and create proprietary website communities such as BeWell@Stanford.
One feature I did notice is the "resources near you". Perhaps businesses purchase a listing and that's another way they are generating income for now.
Wellsphere does look like competition for sites like DailyStrength with the social networking aspect of it. And it's actually kinda nice that those ads (which I really thought were there) are gone.
But it is disappointing that some folks are very quickly hawking their own websites and services. I can imagine that some clever folks could go after ad revenue by creating blogsites, joining the network, only publishing partial feeds which just might bring traffic back to their own sites to grab ad click throughs.
Actually, I'm probably just being very skeptical right now. Likely cause it looked so much different when I first took a look.
I'll be curious to see what you guys make of it after a little while. :)
Hello
I was approached last June and flattered up and joined, this was in June then could not log on dr. Rutledge took forever to answer my mails finally a month later he did and I could log on.
Was disappointed to find no other ms blogs or bloggers and a concentration on adverts and health topics, such stuff as jogging and vitamin supplements and a constant exhortation to sign up friends and earn things like ipods for recruiting ten friends or more.
Did not and do not like this felt no kinship at all with the site and did not wish to be a ssociated with something so commercial.
And still don't prefer to concentrate on blogging and reading others blogs without any outside help from Wellsphere.
Took me what seemed forever to get away from Wellsphere, asking to go and get my page and the feed disconnected from my blog took many mails, dr. Rutledge ignored me until I got hold of various email addresses from their website ad everytime I mailed the good dr. I also mailed them and very quickly after that he got in touch and after a couple more round robin emails I was free of them took several months to achieve.
Found the dr. very rude for ignoring my emails, he was quick enough when he wanted to recruit me but not after that.
Until I was clever enough to mail all the Wellsphere addresses.
Hope that it works out for those that have joined up.
Love,
Herrad
Hi Shauna,
Breaking news today...
The Health Central Network has purchased Wellsphere.
http://www.thehealthcentralnetwork.com/news/20090128.html
Lisa
Wow.
S.
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