Earlier this month Sharecare Now -- a new service (under Sharecare) that conducts in-depth analyses of health and wellness conversations online -- named the top 10 influencers in the online diabetes community.
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The Top 10 Diabetes influencers:
1) Amy Tenderich, DiabetesMine™
2) Kerri Sparling, Six Until Me
3) Kelly Close, Close Concerns
4) Manny Hernandez, Tu Diabetes / Ask Manny
5) Leighann Calentine, D-Mom Blog
6) Riva Greenberg, The Huffington Post
7) Kelly Kunik, Diabetesaliciousness™
8) Elizabeth Woolley, About.com -- Type 2 Diabetes / Diabetic Mommy
9) Kim Vlasnik, Texting My Pancreas / You Can Do This Project
10) Scott Johnson, Scott's Diabetes
The "SharecareNow 10 -- Diabetes list" reflects those who demonstrated consistent impact on diabetes-specific online conversations over the past year. Influence and impact were also measured with a proprietary Sharecare Now-algorithm based on diabetes relevance, syndication, presence and reach. Influencers were then ranked from most to least influential based on a scoring structure.
This is the first Sharecare Now Top 10 list. The company intends to release a new list each month covering 49 health categories. These range from allergies to women's health and include all major health categories such as cancer, COPD, heart disease, oral health, skin care and fibromyalgia.
Diabetes was chosen as the first health category in honor of Diabetes Month, Sharecare's valued partnership with the American Diabetes Association and diabetes' epidemic nature.
Sharecare Now's parent company, Sharecare, has a mission different than most health care sites. Jeff Arnold, one of Sharecare's and Sharecare Now's creators, also the founder of WebMD, told me, "It is to humanize health care and take people from information to action to support. We're also going to judge ourselves not on page views, but on our impact on patients."
"Over the last twelve years," said Arnold, "even with the explosion in social media, in information, access and technology, chronic disease has only continued to go up. All this stuff isn't making people healthier. We want Sharecare to be the humble host highlighting experts, creating world-class partnerships (Sharecare has more than 150 partners including Dr. Oz, Deepak Chopra, Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins, the American Diabetes Association, the Red Cross and Walgreens) and making patients' search for quality health care information easier. We also want to enable health care providers, organizations and every day experts like those on the SharecareNow 10 -- Diabetes list to have more impact online."
In 2012 Sharecare will build as Arnold calls it, an "interactive medicine cabinet" of programs to help consumers take positive action with their health. He hopes providers will be inspired by Dr. Oz's success with his Sharecare programs "Move it and lose it," which enrolled 600,000 participants, and "Transformation Nation," a partnership with Weight Watchers, to bring their programs online.
I know almost all of the people on SharecareNow's Top 10 diabetes list. I have read, and continue to read, many of their blogs. I can tell you, without the use of algorithms, that if you're looking for information, to ask questions, share experiences and find the friendship, community and support that comes from others who live with diabetes -- and advocate for all of us -- you couldn't do better than to start with this list.