New Online Health Advisor Offers Healthcare Product Marketers As Content Providers

A new entrant into the online health advice category, Sharecare.com, plans to respond to consumers’ health questions using both recognized medical resources – like the Cleveland Clinic and the American Cancer Society – and sponsor companies marketing health-related products. Although content offered by the marketers will be clearly labeled, skeptics wonder if users will be able to differentiate between the two sources and worry that information from marketers might not be completely objective. A Sharecare executive countered: “It’s interesting to see how seriously the brands are taking their answers because they know their answers will not be far from the experts’.”  The online health advice market in the U.S. is sizeable, seeing 96.6 million unique visitors in August, about 45 percent of the month’s total U.S. internet activity.