Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) has been eying the lucrative healthcare sector, but has been occupied with the development of products thought to be more urgent. Now, the social media giant is seriously working ways to join the sector by creating an online health support community, connecting its users who are suffering from specific ailments.
It’s not an unfounded thought though, especially coming at a time that the company already has information about over a billion people.
Some of the tech companies that have developed products and services for the health sector include Apple Inc. and Google Inc, and Samsung, and they have registered considerable successes.
There are sources that have revealed that alongside the support community, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is considering creating apps that will help users live better lifestyles and prevent some illnesses.
Similar sources have also indicated that the past few months have been busy months for the company as it was holding series of meetings with medical experts and entrepreneurs. The company is currently setting up a new a development unit to test health apps so as to come up with solutions that are dependable.
The whole idea is still at its information gathering stage.
This development comes at a time when Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is looking for new ways of having users engaged to avoid losing them to other social networks such as Twitter Inc. that are also working on their services to win more users.
The company’s chief operations officer Sheryl Sandberg recently said in an interview with Fortune in New York during Advertising Week that the company cannot afford to lose its current user base, but instead will be working to have users continuously engaged on the platform. That’s the only way the company can continue earning the huge revenues it has been raking in from advertisers, she said.
The move by Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is said to have been influenced by the organ donor status that the company introduced in 2012. The feature created a lot of positive activity with more than 10,000 people registering their status as organ donors in the U.S. alone on the first day.
The company is however faced with several concerns that include user privacy and whether users will agree to share their medical information on the social platform. Some of the things that would give the company some impetus is the growth of other platforms such as PatientsLikeMe that have seen more people disclose information about their health.
