Comments on: Revolution Health Gets A Mercy Sale, Turns $200+ Million Into $100 Million

By: MiVitals Can’t Find Pulse For Online Health Records

MiVitals Can’t Find Pulse For Online Health Records — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:19:35 +0000

[...] WebMD, Aetna’s SmartSource (via a partnership with Healthline), and Revolution Health (now part of Waterfront Media), are just a few of the many online platforms that let consumers organize their health records [...]

By: MiVitals Can’t Find Pulse For Online Health Records | TechgearX.com

MiVitals Can’t Find Pulse For Online Health Records | TechgearX.com — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 01:00:13 +0000

By: Trade Jim News » MiVitals Can’t Find Pulse For Online Health Records

Trade Jim News » MiVitals Can’t Find Pulse For Online Health Records — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:50:08 +0000

By: ComScore Report: Fastest-Growing Sites And Top-Ten Advertising Magnets

ComScore Report: Fastest-Growing Sites And Top-Ten Advertising Magnets — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:43:01 +0000

[...] big gains among the fastest growers came because acquisitions (CBS acquiring Cnet, Everyday Health acquiring Revolution Health and an advertising agreement with Drugstore.com, JPMorgan Chase acquiring Washington Mutual) or [...]

By: HealthCentral Buys Wellsphere « YAFC (UCSF) Technology Initiative

HealthCentral Buys Wellsphere « YAFC (UCSF) Technology Initiative — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 17:15:45 +0000

[...] 28, 2009 · No Comments Three months ago Steve Case’s Revolution Health sold for $100 million or so to Waterfront Media (after raising $200 million in venture capital). Consolidation continues [...]

By: Consolidation Continues In Online Health: HealthCentral Buys Wellsphere

Consolidation Continues In Online Health: HealthCentral Buys Wellsphere — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 07:35:59 +0000

[...] months ago Steve Case’s Revolution Health sold for $100 million or so to Waterfront Media (after raising $200 million in venture capital). Consolidation continues [...]

By: The truth

The truth — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:37:09 +0000

How much success can you achieve when you have a big loser like Don Hacket as you starting CEO? He ran Dr. Koop into the land of failure. Plus when you have other senior people who do not know how to peel a banana, what can you expect?

By: The truth

The truth — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:36:37 +0000

How much success can you acheive when you have a big loswer like Don hacket as you starting CEO? He ran Dr. Koop into the land of failure. Plus when you have other senior people who do not know how to peel a banana, what can you expect?

By: InsideView-2.0

InsideView-2.0 — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 13:34:51 +0000

I am also responsible. And Sorry if I hurt your feelings.I am just giving my opinion like everyone else and can be wrong. But it’s my opinion.

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 13:16:48 +0000

I find it interesting that Glam walked away from this deal and Everyday Health — which is much smaller and relatively unknown jumped at it. In the weeks following the deal, this seems like a good decision on Glam and a poor one for EH.

Why? Both RH & EH drive traffic by spending large amounts of money on keywords- Glam does not spend any. Any of us could show 10M visitors if we spent the money — given neither are profitable, hey are running a dangerous arbitrage business. Last downturn, all these companies went belly up, as there were just not enough ads to support buying low and selling high. Health agencies and brand managers are not stupid to spend money like this.

Glam preserving its cash, and being tighter sounded odd couple of week ago — now sounds wise given the world economy. RH would have been the only part of their business where they would have had to spend money for content and traffic. In their current model, they have stopped minimums and house ads since April — Michael wrote about it. May be they were being careful way back then. Not as good short term for publishers was what it sounded like — now looks like they were acting responsibly, and their publishers may survive. While RH, Federated, Adify, and small network publishers like Travel Ads will have a hard time — or shut down.

By: SackingMondayMorningQBs

SackingMondayMorningQBs — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 20:53:23 +0000

“That said, most people who worked there are somewhat responsible for the failure.”

Except you, of course. Right?

You’ve got it all figured out, which is why you’re trying to build industry-changing companies, instead of trolling biz-gossip sites.

Oh, wait …

By: SackingMondayMorningQBs

SackingMondayMorningQBs — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 20:40:59 +0000

Except you, of course. Right?

You’ve got it all figured out, which is why you’re off making billions instead of trolling biz-gossip sites.

By: InsideView-2.0

InsideView-2.0 — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:22:32 +0000

I won’t blame Steve for everything. Sure, he wanted to do something grand but its not a bad thing. The speed at which money was burnt was probably the single most important reason for RH’s failure. Much focus was on trying to create value using technology instead of providing useful and in-depth content for which most people visit such sites.
Inept middle and senior management is equally responsible for the failure. Bad sexy ideas were promoted over better common sense (not so sexy) ones and there was no concern over the cost of development or consideration for value added to the company/site. That said, most people who worked there are somewhat responsible for the failure.

By: Former AOLer

Former AOLer — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 18:47:17 +0000

InsideView
you really dont know what you are talking about. Case was the FIRST ONE to realize the value of GOOGLE. therefore he very early replaced their search engine with the google search engin. not only that , in return he got 3% of google. Not bad. your very long statements plus statement that you bet he doesnt know what is Google, reveal that you are full of hatred and have an agenda. tell us why you are so frustrated ?

By: DeeDoop

DeeDoop — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:51:41 +0000

InsideView… You have no idea what in the hell you’re talking about.

By: Real facts

Real facts — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:34:31 +0000

Wrong. While it is true that about a year ago a lot of their traffic was SEM, most of it recently was SEO — i.e. cheap — traffic. They actually have better uniques and page views than the acquiring company. The real problem was the lack of a subscriber income base.

Folks, I see a lot of people opining without an ounce of accuracy here. Don’t play the expert if you don’t know the facts.

By: Outsiders

Outsiders — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 22:07:54 +0000

InsideView, looks like you are not really from the inside. Even outsiders knows Revolution’s office nor Revolution Health’s office is in Georgetown. They are both in Dupont Circle.

By: InsideView

InsideView — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 21:50:21 +0000

PS: not a surprise, but resumes have been flying out of “Revolution” at an amazing pace…

By: InsideView

InsideView — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 21:47:07 +0000

This property has not performed as it was expected; it is reliable to a point because it operates under the supervision of the FDIC. There have been several other companies started in the past few years on the online payment space with mostly poor performance –and failure.
PayPal dominates and will do so in the foreseeable future. Again, Case, with a grandiose [largely misplaced] purpose, wanted to dominate the online payment landscape… ["Revolutionaze" --change everything, I know better and I can do better]
Now that the “Revolution” brand has lost some of its luster, its negative effect will be felt by several other properties… At the same time, as I commented before, Case will try again; however, it is reasonable to assume that some of his calls would not be returned this time. AOL is part of history, we would be better off leaving it where it is…

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 16:41:54 +0000

I know they were giving away a bunch of money for referrals to Revolution Money Exchange awhile back.

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 16:37:56 +0000

Any word on partner Revolution Money Exchange?

By: InsideView

InsideView — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 14:03:00 +0000

Yes, content is king. It is amazing that so many [apparently] smart entrepreneurs do not get this obvious fact.
First, you have to identify a need [market] –for a service, solution or product, then build your company to satisfy it.
As a crude example, and I am sorry to bring this up, “The Drudge Report” illustrates this crucial point: the site seems designed by a chimp, however, it has been successful for a long time because it addresses the “need” for political gossip.
When “Revolution” was started, the push was to design the ‘best possible’ GUI with a lot of ads –not quality content, mind you. As I quoted before on TC, I was present at one of their early meetings, asking repeatedly to the ‘Chief of Content’ about content quality written by qualified, experienced physicians: one of my points was that if the site/company was started to offer the ‘best’ health and medical information available, wouldn’t it make sense to hire the best medical professionals? [duh!!!!!] –Well, basically I was told to shut up, because the ‘content’ was to be prepared by in-house ‘health’ writers [with NO medical training at all.]
At that point, I realized that this company would be permanently visiting the deadpool. It lasted this long only because of Steve Case’s deep pockets…

By: wisdom

wisdom — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 05:16:34 +0000

The reason Revolution Health burns through so much money is because of their insane and unresonable adwords campaign. They even advertise on obsecure search terms. What’s the point when you need quality content to keep visitors coming back.

By: InsideView

InsideView — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 00:23:05 +0000

To Reggie –Back in the days, when AOL was hyperactive buying small companies and signing deals with hundreds of advertisers, its approach was always aimed at squeezing hard, trying to get the last penny out of them [a close business associate defined it as getting the deal plus 'a pound of flesh'] –Steve case has carried forward with him a similar ’spirit’ meaning that he has obtained the best money-making deals possible from Revolution advertisers and associates, keeping in mind that his name alone would virtually guarantee a great success for his company; you know, his friends are powerful people with almost unlimited means plus well-known celebrities and public figures such Colin Powell and many others.
Unfortunately, he has not kept pace with significant changes on the Internet, new trends, social networks, and much, much more. Bet he does not know what Techcrunch is… and probably has some vague concept as to what ‘Google’ means, other than the ubiquitous search engine.
In other words, although he has a lot of millions, he has missed the train.
As to the contents, the deals are/were similar in the sense that the sources considered Revolution as another way to get more traffic to their own sites, bringing, in turn, more patients to their hospitals, more income and profit, etc.

To Martin Ringlein — Although kind of out of touch, Steve still is a powerful player. He has diversified his investments and could have [really] retired, in the traditional sense, long time ago. He will try again, but this time, hope that he steps back and, really, try to learn from the always shifting landscape. He would be wise to get closer to the valley and, perhaps start a VC fund or associate with younger minds to start new companies: there are hundreds of new, brilliant ideas out there in need of seed money.

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 23:58:16 +0000

Can you spell “dot com bubble”! These guys still know one thing extremely well, how to burn through insane amounts of money and try to sell to a bigger fool when the time comes to bail….incredible.