DailyStrength Members Community Support Group

What does it mean for you folks? The one current employees of DS.

I think a lot of us DS members would agree that without major technical improvements, all the experts, articles & info in the world won't be very helpful.

The fact that DS staff ignores every substantive suggestion, and focuses its time rather on what type of new smiley face they should come up with, tells me that regardless of who owns and operates the site, until you have people actually listening on a "support" site, all your bells and whistles don't amount to jack squat.

kinda makes me sick, all these so called experts. the real experts are the ones living with these conditions. last thing we want or need are more ads, trying to sell books and useless crap. and articles from those not walking in our shoes at all.

Is Oprah going to own everything>>> I am getting sick of her. and Dr OZ is not well informed IMO.. Good luck to Paul and the other staff here at DS.

Thanks for the info Paul - and good luck with your job and the other staff as well.

I agree. You can give us all the experts in the world that is not going to fix the problems on DS.
We need some real help with things like the the photo sections (for many) the av cropping (everyone) etc etc the list goes on.

Now I have a question but you can bet that it will not be answered.
DS has been sold AGAIN?
Why?
Did HSW find that it was not as financially profitable as they thought/ told/ wanted?

Who owns Sharecare?
And I agree that soon Oprah will own the world (look at how HER man go in as President?) I have no time for her any more and I have zero time for the showman in scrubs AKA Dr Oz. Makes me ashamed to use that about us in this country now.

I still live in the futile hope that things will be changed around here, the avs, the chat, the ignore etc etc.

Must say things never stay the same here that is for sure.

HSW bought DS from Doug (more or less). HSW and other entities are PARTNERS in the ownership of Sharecare which now owns DS.

Obviously, HSW 'put up DS' as a partner in Sharecare. I will say, .. there are some big players in Sharecare. Certainly worth noting.

Hathani, DS wasn't exactly sold. It just kind of got tossed around as part of another business deal:

Discovery Communications, Harpo Productions (Oprah), HSW International (owns DS), and Sony Pictures got together and started a new company called Sharecare. From the press release:

"Daily Strength, a subsidiary of HSW International, will be acquired by Sharecare. Daily Strength...will give Sharecare immediate access to an established social network of people that can ask and answer questions. "

I think this means that DS could become a guinea pig for Sharecare to use in their "Web 3.0" exploits. The idea behind Sharecare seems to be that be supplying just enough legitimate "experts" to health care sites like DS, they can also slip in some high-cost advertising via "Knowledge Partners", businesses posing as experts:

(from press release)...As part of Sharecare’s unique business model, answers are also provided by “Knowledge Partners,” private sector sponsoring companies that have compiled substantial research through product development, pharmaceutical and medical device discovery, or consumer product development. This unique engagement allows a brand to develop a direct relationship with consumers by transparently participating in the conversations of health, as opposed to simply purchasing a traditional banner ad. "

At any rate, Daily Strength was probably a very minor part of this deal. We're just the eyeballs they're going to use to test their new business model on. And in this case, Adblock plus is not going help at all :-(

I hope I'm wrong that the new biz-model is basically advertisers posing as experts. That's all "Web 3.0" is?. But at any rate, I wouldn't look for this to change much else at DS.

-FM

It doesnt matter who owns DS.
It doesnt matter what they focus on.
It doesnt matter what experts they get in.
It doesnt matter how they advertise.

All that matter is we make this place a great support community. They built the building, we are the ones that gave that building its use.
As for new smileys, Im still looking for a BazLazarus Brand Hugguns, I was thinking maybe a big cuddly bear, or maybe a viper, depending on my mood!

Spoken like a true CL, BazLazarus ;-) Yes, the house is nothing without its occupants. I was just saying I didn't think the house was going to change much. A bit more info to confirm this:

http://paidcontent.org/article/419...

“As part of the deal, HSW is contributing its health social net service DailyStrength to the venture, a site it acquired late last year for up to $6.6 million. From the SEC filing made this morning by HSW, the latest deal with sell DailyStrength to Sharecare includes an ear-out payment (sic) of $3.25 million, among others. The site will officially launch next year.” (http://paidcontent.org/article/419-healthcare-qa-site-sharecare-launched-by-discovery-harpo-others-acquire/)

Here "ear-out" means "earn-out". You'll notice HSW seems to have lost a bunch of money on this deal considering what they paid for it. But my understanding of an earn-out deal means HSW retains some interest and control over the operations of DS. So something has been negotiated that makes it still in HSW's interest to make DS more profitable. That's good for us insofar as it keeps DS going and run by presumably mostly the same people. I think.

It's all very interesting. I wonder, has anyone participated in the expert "webinars" that have been advertised here to date? What was that like?

-FM