BITPORTERS ltd.

I’m laying here feeling sick – and of course that makes me think about health related web business models. So how about this idea…

What about having a site where anyone can submit a health problem or give advice on other peoples issues? In the usual Web2.0 goodness all symptoms can become “tags” and you can see what combinations of previous diagnoses match yours. Think of tag cloud - but instead a ‘symptom’ cloud. That alone would aide people in their self-diagnosis.

Take this a step further and instead of self-diagnosis, a person could request medical opinions from the entire community. A person could take a picture (ewww!) or write up a description of their condition and submit it to the site anonymously. It could be like a poll in a sense – the ‘ask the audience’ life line but for the “what’s wrong with me” question.

Now for the Amazon Mechanical Turk twist! I’m a strong believer in that AMT can be used for expert intelligence as well as just basic human intelligence. Using the qualifications system and a little bit of E-mail/phone interviewing you could build up a workforce of med students and retired doctors to tackle diagnosis HITs. You could set your site up so that a user can ask the question to the community for free, however they would have to pay for a trusted (semi)professional opinion.

Could this site turn a profit? I think so — the referral potential alone would be huge. You could link to books and health products on Amazon.com. I’m sure there are non prescription online-drug referral programs out there too. You could even use Text-Link-Ads to let specialized clinics advertise their services on the pages of related illnesses.

So there you have it – another viable business idea based on top of Amazon Mechanical Turk. If I wasn’t busy until 2020 I’d build it myself!:)

Are you thinking about starting an online business? Give me a call and we can brainstorm and enhance your idea – together we could find more ways to increase profit and cut down on costs.