We’ve all heard enough already about social websites like MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn exploding in popularity. Social networking is all the buzz these days. And we all know that if the internet is good for anything it’s finding a stage for niche subjects to have their day in the sun. So the rise in niche health social media sites should be no surprise.  If you buy into the doom and gloom of the looming recession then the latest the Forrester Research report makes an interesting argument that marketers should move dwindling dollars from traditional media into social media like word of mouth, blogging and social networking. Here are a few examples of healthcare niche social networking sites:
 
DailyStrength.org: Gives patients and caregivers a place to join a support community, write a journal, share videos, and even send other members a virtual “hug.”
 
PatientsLikeMe.com: Community for people battling devastating diseases that provides a platform for collecting and sharing real world, outcome-based patient data.
 
ICYou.com: The YouTube of health care, ICYou.com offers over 1,500 posted videos on everything from recipes for diabetics to vlogs from cancer patients.
 
ReliefInSite.com: A web-based pain assessment and tracking diary that empowers patient’s to receive better and faster treatment by sharing their pain diary with their doctors, nurses, pain specialists, therapists, friends and family members.
 
Sermo.com: Accessible only by physicians, allows the 50,000 strong physician community to tap “the wisdom of crowds” to help them accelerating the emergence of trends and new insights on medications, devices and treatments.