I am happy to announce the launch of our first comprehensive survey of health & medical bloggers, produced in partnership with Fard Johnmar, over at Envision Solutions LLC.

You can read our press release on PR Web or (if you are a blogger) go directly to Fard's landing page for survey link and instructions. The survey findings report will be released at our upcoming Healthcare Blogging Summit 2006 on December 11 in Washington DC.

So what is the purpose of this survey (in plain language)? Why does it share this post about "recent press"?

Health & medical blogosphere is growing in its numbers and more significantly, influence. But besides anecdotal evidence, there is little reliable data (especially quantitative) to understand who the bloggers are, how they think and what do they do.

Blogosphere started out as a conversation, having nothing to do with business. Yet soon it turned out that this conversation can exert enormous impact on the fortunes of commercial entities. No segment is an exception and healthcare is only starting to be impacted.

Hospitals, health plans, pharmas, medical device vendors and all other healthcare organizations have no choice but tune into the "chatter on the internets" and then join in. But to do this effectively, they need a roadmap. This survey is an early step of paving it.

Consider the title of a recent SF Chronicle article, tackling some of these issues head on: "Advertisers circle realm of blogging. Web journals could become the next marketing frontier"

The article reports from BlogHer conference, which I wrote about this week. BlogHer is an example of a tasteful introduction of commerce into blogs. SF Chronicle quotes Elisa Camahort, who will be speaking at our upcoming Healthcare Blogging Summit 2006:

According to Elisa Camahort, one of three BlogHer co-founders, "We're the bridge between companies and these amplified influencers." Amplified influencers is Camahort's term for popular bloggers, people like Dopp who might be able to shift marketplace opinion about products with a few kind words -- or harsh ones -- at the stroke of the "enter" key.

Camahort said market research showed bloggers wield an influence on the public as strong as word of mouth, thanks largely to the notion that the loose medium consisting of about 12 million U.S. writers has developed a reputation for unfiltered and transparent discussion. It's also a tight group where opinion travels quickly; 90 percent of those writers read other blogs, according to a June study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

These ideas really seem to get people's juices flowing. A brief chat with a reporter (Justin Berton), got me this mention, even though it has nothing to do with BlogHer coverage!

Dmitriy Kruglyak, a 28-year-old "health care blogger" and entrepreneur, visited the convention to learn how to duplicate the model of bridging advertising to blogging.

"If their niche is women bloggers, then mine is health care bloggers," Kruglyak said. "What they're building for women, and selling to advertisers, is what I want to build for doctors and nurses, and so on, who blog."

Now, I am not sure the quote is 100% accurate. A TMBN ad network IS under consideration, but not a decided fact. What I wanted to say is that we are looking to serve health & medical blogosphere, in the similar ways BlogHer is serving women blogosphere.

Now back to survey and why it is so important.

The key questions deal with what types of commercial presence are appropriate. Once we have the answers we can determine whether a medblog ad network is needed and if so how to design it.

Take the survey to help us decide and spread the word!