HealthContentAdvisors

Revolution Health and Everyday Health to Consolidate?

• Posted September 10th 2008
• by Janice

Just two weeks ago, we wrote about the likely shakeout and consolidation among the many consumer health websites in this crowded space.  Now, rumors of a merger between Steve Case’s Revolution Health and Waterfront Media’s Everyday Health are gaining credence.  Today, the Washington Post and PaidContent report that Revolution and Waterfront are in discussions to merge in an attempt to overcome WebMD as the most highly trafficked online health site. 

Staci Kramer at PaidContent interviewed Ben Wolin, CEO of Waterfront Media, who told her “I think all the major health sites out there are talking to each other.  We’re going to talk to every single health site and see if there are deals to be had to get to that milestone and I include Revolution in that group of companies. Whatever happens with Revolution, they’re the number 3 player right now and it’s going to shake up the market place.”

Clearly, Waterfront’s strategy is to survive the shakeout by being the largest consumer health site, measured by traffic.  It’s a solid short-term strategy that will continue to attract investors and advertisers in the high-growth online consumer health market(1).  But, long-term survival will require using their size advantage to continually invest in creating value and efficiency for the consumers who visit their sites.  Otherwise, they will invite other upstart competitors to overtake their leading position via a similar consolidation strategy.

We’ll keep a watchful eye on activity in the online consumer healthcare space and continue to keep you abreast of likely developments. 

(1) See the latest ComScore data that reports the health information site category has grown 21 percent during the past year, 4 times faster than overall Internet traffic.