title: Web 2.0 and chronic illness: new horizons, new opportunities.
abstract: "Web 2.0" heralds a breakthrough opportunity for empowering healthcare consumers of all types, and especially for those suffering from different forms of chronic illness. As the author shows using some data gathered from a popular social networking website--MySpace.com--this opportunity may be greatest for heavily stigmatized chronic health issues, such as obesity and mental illness.
authors.affiliation: IBM's Global Buisness Services, Toronto. neil@ca.ibm.com
authors.forename: Neil
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Seeman
mesh_terms: D002908:Chronic Disease; D054626:Consumer Health Information; D006751:Hospital Information Systems; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination; D007255:Information Services / Q000639:trends; D020407:Internet / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012944:Social Support