Microsoft has agreed to buy a small consumer health search engine called Medstory, in an effort to push further into the healthcare software and Internet service industry.
Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer announced the purchase today, apparently giving the WSJ, which provides media content to Medstory, an exclusive on the announcement (sub required).
Medstory is one of numerous health care search engines to have launched recently, each of them seeking to help consumers and health care professionals in different ways. Medstory is a tiny start-up, based in Foster City, Calif, and is relatively unknown.
It is backed by inviduals Esther Dyson (editor-at-large at CNET Networks, which has also, interestingly, mentioned the company in early coverage), Zach Nelson, (President and CEO of NetSuite) and Marty Tenenbaum (Internet commerce pioneer and Chairman of CommerceNet).
According to the WSJ, Microsoft hopes to help bring a standard to what is currently a very fragmented healthcare software industry:
Doctors, hospitals and other healthcare facilities currently use a host of different software programs that lack standard ways to input and retrieve healthcare records and other data. Microsoft hopes that it can help standardize that process, making healthcare easier to use — while building a new business for itself.
It isn’t clear, however, how Microsoft will do this. Google and numerous other companies have either entered, or planned to enter this area, seeking to help consumers store medical records, allow easier Web-based retrieval, get better advice, track expenses, and so on.
Medstory’s approach is as quirky as any of the other engines. Take the example of a search for “knee pain,” for example. Medstory returns results for this term in all kinds of different categories. (See screenshot at below). For example, under a “conditions,” you’ll find articles from the WSJ about knee pain, though it isn’t clear why this is limited to the WSJ. There is also a category for “people,” which provides names of doctors who presumably treat knee pain, though there is no explanation of how the’re ordered — however, the WSJ explains tht Medstory’s technology does this by extracting semantic and other relationships on the Web between the term “knee pain” and the various categories. At the bottom are search results that are ordered in a similar way to Google’s results, though they are powered with help of Microsoft’s exisiting search technology.
Medstory has 10 employees, and has so far tried relying on advertising. Medstory Founder and Chief Executive Alain Rappaport has an M.D. and Ph.D. in molecular pharmacology.
12 Comments
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Kathy said:
I just wanted to mention another health search engine that launched recently… http://www.healia.com
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Rex said:
I don’t believe Ms. Dyson is with CNET anymore. She’s certainly no longer listed on the editors page:
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MPBelanger said:
Can anyone report Medstory’s first venture round valuation?
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Kind And Thoughtful said:
I think this is a smart move by Microsoft. There are many great things happening in medicine and healthcare.
By the way, on a different subject, I think credit should be given to Melinda Gates. I think she was the catalyst for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation doing so much humanitarian work. Behind every great man there is a great woman. Together they are changing the world and making it better. I applaud them and think of them as a national treasure.
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Yakov said:
Esther told me a long ago that a vertical search engine is a way to win in this industry. Sounded like she could predict the above exit already :) We have a platform technology to easily create those verticals. We started with a search for kids.
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Gordon said:
This
Doctors, hospitals and other healthcare facilities currently use a host of different software programs that lack standard ways to input and retrieve healthcare records and other data. Microsoft hopes that it can help standardize that process, making healthcare easier to use
doesn’t make a lot of sense. This purchase has zero to do with how Doctors, hospitals and other healthcare facilities input the data. while I have no doubt that MS would like to standardize that process on its products, this purchase seems to pass by that goal without ever touching it.
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Mehdi said:
interesting article
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Search Engines WEB said:
hmmm…
Is this an attempt to cash in on the information needs of the ageing Baby Boomers - and the ‘turning 40′ Generation X’ers?
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Adam Sharp said:
The results aren’t bad, but I don’t think refinement-based search engines like this will catch on. People want to search for a keyword and get the results in one step.
In my health search engine, http://www.healthfind.com, I’m using different kinds of categories (alternative med, forums, kids, pets, as well as the general engine). I think having different search-categories is more effective than post-search refinements.
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Jimmy C said:
I think this is a VERY smart move by Microsoft.
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Symptoms of Celiac Disease said:
I think this is a good move by Microsoft because the online health niche is very big and difficult to move into. By buying an established health website MS will be able to fast track success. With the addition of web 2.0 technologies MS could become a power house in online health.
One Trackback
11:32 am
Edelman Dublin » Blog Archive » The Monday Roundup said:
[...] VentureBeat reports on the purchase of a specialised Internet search firm, MedStory, by Microsoft. There are a couple interesting trends in search at the moment such as Internet users turning to Wikipedia ahead of Google to find specific information. Specialised search is one of those trends which willgrow in leaps and bounds over the next year or two. [...]