HealthyConcerns.com

Revolution Health gets bailed out too

They're calling the new deal between Revolution Health and Waterfront Media a merger, but I think Web MD's CEO probably has it right in this Media Post article:

He described the deal as a "bailout" for Revolution Health--which he said had boosted traffic in part through alliances with sites such as Drugstore.com, which is principally an e-commerce rather than an ad-supported business.

"We're not interested in trying to bulk up our comScore metrics as benchmark of success," he said. Nevertheless, he said WebMD would continue to consider potential acquisitions that would help "grow our brand and business proposition."

Sounds about right, honestly.

I find his reference specifically to bulking up comScore metrics very interesting. Any web business knows that media buyers can treat those reach numbers like the bible. But they're also very revealing. Where is that reach coming from? Are sites really comprised of the kind of traffic they promise? Anyone who cares to can delve into those numbers for well-known web properties and be surprised

The bottom line questions that will determine the success of this newly merged property: 1) Do media buyers find the page views that come to a site like Drugstore.com as valuable as the ones that come to the information and community pages (and if they did wouldn't Revolution have been doing better?) and 2) how much of this supposed newly merged traffic is unduplicated? Because that too can be determined.

We'll see; we'll see.

Today is World Vegetarian Day...and a vegan diet turns out to be good for Type 2 Diabetes

Today happened to be World Vegetarian Day. Which, as you may know, is something I basically celebrate every day as a practicing vegan! In fact all of October is Vegetarian Awareness Month (according to the North American Vegetarian Society).

Now, i could encourage you all to give veganism a try by pointing you also to VeganMoFo, spearheaded by noted vegan chef, cookbook writer and cupcake aficianado Isa Moskowitz. That's short for the Vegan Month of Food, and is a project where scores of bloggers commit to blog as much wonderful stuff about food...recipes, reviews etc...as they can for the entire month of October.

But this is a health blog, so I will point you to the latest medical study indicating a vegan diet is effective for staving off, in this case, cardiovascular disease, particularly in patients with Type 2 diabetes. Honestly, I thought we already knew that, but i think the differentiator about this study was that it was specifically looking at Type 2 diabetes patients because heart attacks or strokes kill two-thirds of those patients! Which is pretty shocking.

So take advantage of VeganMoFo and Vegetarian Awareness month and give peace (and peas) a chance in October. Let me know how it goes, m'kay?