TauMed Expands Into Health Video

TauMed CEO Tauseef Bashir chatted with WebProNews about the health search and community site’s newest addition: video, integrated throughout the platform. For TauMed’s userbase, it means a little extra content arriving in response to their queries.

The usual assortment of features are available for videos on TauMed. Community members can rate and tag them; they can flag inappropriate content as needed.

Options to link or embed the videos exist; Bashir said they developed the video player in-house, so it would have all the features they wanted.

TauMed lists videos related to a search by popularity within the category. Other related content from the Internet and the community also appears. "They get pushed the relevant info at any given time," said Bashir.

At the time of our chat, TauMed had about 130 videos on the site, with some of them contributed by the site’s community. TauMed continued to make security and privacy a priority with this newest feature, as they have with other aspects of its service.

Like community sites of all stripes, TauMed’s content will benefit if they can pull in more active users. Community questions show few if any responses from members, and the "Health Share" feature has enjoyed only sporadic participation.

It may be that TauMed and similar sites are running ahead of the curve at this moment. People use the Internet to find health information, but may balk at bring more participatory in a health community due to reasonable privacy concerns.

TauMed has tried to address this by participating in ScanAlert’s ‘Hacker Safe’ program, along with its internal focus on privacy. A greater shift in the comfort level of the web surfing public may need more time to happen to catch up to the possibilities of online health information services.

The message is that someone doesn’t have to be alone in looking for health information, but they can be as private as they like.

Bashir has about ten years of experience in search, and he and his fellow TauMed creators have been working on improving the health search experience. Doing so means going vertical, he said. “It’s to avoid duplication while enhancing credible sources.”

Search occupies one segment of what TauMed offers. TauMed has HONcode accreditation; that comes from the Swiss-based Health On the Net Foundation. Search results come from resources like A.D.A.M.’s Health Illustrated Encyclopedia, and from a variety of trusted online resources.

Bashir noted their practice of licensing such premium content. On the technology side, they do mining on that data so it can be presented to a visitor based on other text in a page. As one changes topics by clicking on a related search term in the sidebar, TauMed updates the search results, terms, and related health news on display.

“One shouldn’t have to leave content just to find related info,” said Bashir.

Since its mid-December launch, Bashir has been bringing community resources into play. Searchers familiar with services like Yahoo Answers and Answerbag will see a similar health-focused offering on TauMed.

Visitors can post questions, other users can post answers, and the community can vote on those replies. People who want to go farther in discussing health issues can signup for a Health Share. These Shares can be opened to the TauMed community, or kept private as desired.

People can personalize TauMed through the use of a feature called My Health Space. We walked through its functions during our conversation.

Profiles in My Health Space can be public or private. When signed in, the profile keeps the person’s search history and categories visited on TauMed. I asked Bashir if this could be cleared out as desired, and he demonstrated how to do so with a single click.

TauMed offers an alternative to the health verticals one might use today. It’s more focused than a general search engine would be on health issues, and its community and personalization provide a deeper visitor experience for those who want it.

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