> Broader. More like, "these types of businesses have experienced *tangible*
> benefits from being on the WEb."
Doctors:
Much of the general medical information of an office can not be
transmitted in a short phone call or visit. Phone calls, re-mailing of
specialty protocols and information often does not occur as it should, in
part for time pressures and the social pressure of not wanting to ask
again. So some doctors may benefit by placing this kind of public data on
the web. This may also attract the specialty patients and other allied
specialists to the practice.
Downside, is that the doctor owned web site is difficult to manage,
due to the... often not ego as much as an innate relative, and often well
deserved, self-confidence/self-authority nature of even the mildest and
kindest doctors. Although the publish or perish syndrome must be brought
to their consciousness from time to time; they are likely not to
understand, and hence ignore the primal needs of architecture, dismissing
the difficulty of changing file locations once a myriad of links have been
made to their pages. They may also be too busy to inspect log files, etc.
preferring a daily summary, and not understand why they have fewer hits on
their pages vs those managed in a more professional setting.
(The 1995 http://www.mall-net.com/cathcart/ vs the current
http://www.orthomed.com/ . We will omit the abomination of the related
ordering site...)
In the case of orthomed, the primary hits for the site are either from
/cathcart or from an obscure article on leg cramps, which is a small and
almost insignificant use of the valuable information at the site. Banners
of their own generation are often regarded as "great", with no need for
serious reconsideration as to size, appearance, or method. (e.g. jpeg
where gif would be superior.)
I have, at times, suggested that a nurse with a laptop computer and
video attachment might be utilized as a remote call service, as per
http://www.mall-net.com/med/ or for remote diagnostic services as per
example of http://www.mall-net.com/iris/ . Live use has been performed
while discussing the condition over the phone, including imaging of
lesions and markings on various body parts. Thus far however, such
approaches have not met with much enthusiasm for wider use due to
perceived insurance risks. Nevertheless, I do firmly believe that with
the unpopularity of house calls among doctors, such telepresence, when
performed by trained personnel using standardized equipment, has
considerable merit. One impediment, however, is the lack of cross state
acceptance of medical specialists, except when used in conjunction with
local medical practitioners. The other being the two many cooks problem
(or sometimes too many captains,) inherent in all multidisciplinary
medical endeavors.
Mail order:
Even those not wanting to to accept on-line orders may find the web a
cost effective postage replacement. In a typical scenario, a potential
customer calls asking for a price list. First response is to ask whether
the person has e-mail or a web browser. If browser, the site is given, if
e-mail, a price list is sent within a day. Turnaround time to order is
often hours instead of days, resulting in more orders as well as less
cost.
Once again, the otherwise well deserved self-authority nature of
proprietors may inhibit the management of such sites, resulting in gross
architectural compromises, and piecemeal development by a number of HTML
artists and would-be HTML slingers; more often the slingers than the
artists. Partial comprehension may result in... what one may ultimately
call stupid and expensive problems. Ego is often a major consideration,
as some consider their business either a form or a vessel for furthering
their personal goals even if this may impede sales.
One common error, is to make up large and sometimes expensive signs
omitting the www because it is cheaper. This may invite unwanted traffic
to their non-www desktop machine whenever it is on the net. They may just
shrug it all off till their machine is compromised, which is not difficult
with Windows based machines.
Shifting of .html files to .htm without any consideration for
real-world effects is also a common problem, as is destruction of meta
tags, comment markers used by external maintenance tools, etc. etc. etc.
Another common error is the use, sometimes by purloining, of unproven
but cute Java applets without understanding their limitations or even
proofing them. One client stole a defective applet which crashed his an
other people's machines for some weeks before it was determined that
leaving the applet running on the browser for some time, common when one
does multiple things on a computer, would consume resources till the
computer crashes. Client went through two sets of warranty replacement
laptops till cause was identified, with much suffering due to loss of
vital custom tools.
While one is hesitant to ascribe these kinds of problems to an
ego-centric nature of otherwise wise persons, self-confidence and their
daily captain-like status must remain suspect as a major contributor to
the difficulties and lack of expected hit rates. For some, it is par for
their new hobby of "websmanship" and/or web management, and are likely to
improve over time. For others... the causes appear to be reflected in
other, time starved aspects of their daily lives.
Nevertheless, diplomacy and some degree of understanding of the
priorities of their lives can help retain them as clients. And in some
cases, barter can assist in convincing them to favor one's assistance vs
others who charge rates, shall we say, commensurate with their skills...
One may, however, still not wish to use such "evolved" sites as
references.
Patients:
Various minor yet debilitating diseases, commonly called orphan
diseases, tempt the victims to put up sites seeking out others sharing
their afflictions. Mailing lists are also common.
Such sites very considerably assist patients in avoiding useless
treatments by less than knowledgeable doctors. By the time such patients
develop their own web sites, they may have gone through a considerable
string of expensive doctors who have repeatedly mis-diagnosed and
mis-treated them, often labeling them as psychological problems, before
the correct laboratory tests reveal the true nature of their disease.
It is interesting to note that Dr. Dean Edel, in a recent TV show,
reported that 90 percent of patients autopsied had other undiagnosed
disease processes which contributed to their suffering.
Many such patients now report that HMO's appear reluctant to test for
diseases which may entail more expensive treatments than palliatives.
(Some report lab workers being instructed to use test procedures with
known very high false negative test ratios despite lab Lab Worker and or
Nurse protests regarding the effectiveness of the tests. Others report
pressure applied to laboratories not to state obvious diagnoses. All
believe this is to allow HMO's to use cheaper palliative treatments and
classify patients as having uninsured psychological problems, rather than
basic and treatable biochemical abnormalities. The fact that multiple
sources report similar problems adds to the utility of patient-patient
discussions on mailing lists. However, lists involving illnesses which
occasional brain chemistry involvement remain difficult to deal with due
to the occasional deranged posts. In addition, some patient mailing lists
may, on occasion, be difficult for those with a weak stomach.)
Since these patient run medical sites are put up in desperation, and
both energy levels and financial levels tend to fluctuate and plunge as
disease progresses, many of these sites appear amateurish, and have a
finite lifespan. The better ones may at times attract funding from
parties having ulterior motives, sometimes selling or advocating various
products which, although alleviating outright suffering, do little for the
underlying causes. This is also common on mailing lists. In other cases
assumptions are made regarding a sole cause of said disease, where there
may be multiple causes for the common symptomology.
A number of these types of sites may be found linked to the two pages
http://www.mall-net.com/arth/ and
http://www.mall-net.com/mcs/porphyria.html
One is cautioned that porphyria is not a pleasant disease.
The arthritis site often receives in excess of 300 hits per day from
various sources, including universities. It is interesting to note that
the webmaster was named in a suit regarding the excessively good
positioning of the original Arthritis FUND provided contents this site in
the search engines. ("roadblocks in the search engines", they called
them.) The original contents had to be removed when The Arthritis
FOUNDATION, a wealthier yet younger organization, sued the now former
Arthritis Fund regarding trademark infringement. The webmaster escaped by
convincing the opposing lawyers to become aware of the independent nature
of the search engines. The site remains mis-indexed by the engines as
belonging to the now renamed Arthritis Fund, despite no longer having any
relationship to them. (Nor does the webmaster have arthritis at present.)
Another site with links to a chain of both research and victim sites
is at http://www.mall-net.com/mcs/porphyria.html . One is cautioned that
the occasional effects mentioned in the chat pages are not pleasant to
read about; but are quite real. These people are not making it up.
Religion:
Sayings, missives, and other information may be provided on-line for
various religious services. This is being exploited to a fair extent by
various minority religions. Religious devotion is, at times, fickle, and
sites for minority religions may pop up and then disappear due to social
pressure, financial status, and health of the devotees. This as yet
remains to be harnessed as a web form of votive candles by conventional
religions, despite some spontaneous manifestations among the ill and/or
unlucky.
One may note some relationship between health and a retreat to
religion. This may, at times be to the detriment of the victims, who
ascribe improved health to providence, rather than to specific treatments,
and thus relapse when they cease treatment under the assumption that they
are now saved. Others appear to be genuinely benefited by such devotions,
possibly due to reported shifts in brain wave patterns while undergoing
religious experiences. (Ref Hutchinson, Anna Wise, etc.) Our
understanding of human biochemistry and neuro-immunology appears somewhat
more advanced than that of religion, but often not by much.
One example of an index for such sites is the link-rot plagued
http://www.mall-net.com/hot/relig.html
Clearly, there is much potential for the web saving professionals,
and society, considerable expense by allowing inexpensive sharing of hard
won information. Web sites and mailing lists are now often used as
alternatives to the spam-bot harvester plagued USENET news forums. As to
actually making money on the web... that appears to be more problematic.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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