And now I´ll stop posting over the Xmas break. Let´s hope I can stop checking email and working. In summer, when in Australia, it was impossible and I started to fear I am an addict!!

Merry Xmas to you all

In Techcrunch, they point at RareShare, a a community site for people with rare medical condition. I will briefly quote part of the article:

 ”shared some of it most recent growth data with us and the results are impressive. Since launching over the summer, the site has grown each month by between 35%-50%, and now has over 700 communities associated with different disorders. Given the nature of the site, the numbers are bittersweet, but it’s nice to know that so many people are finding others they can connect with”.

To me, this is very similar to what I was saying about Health 2.0 recently, the potential of social networks for people with particular health conditions is still unleashed. The article also notes that communities can gather in standalone sites of a specific disease, but RareShare is a starting point for an umbrella.

Xmas coming, my current mobile phone company exhausted me with terrible fares and now I am pondering the dilemma of the year: iPhone (Telefonica) or Blackberry Vodafone)? Currently, I am using a wonderful HTC Touch and I definitely don´t wanna step back. I met the best.

This very interesting article about Blackberry and iPhone is precisely analyzing the issue and making me right: iPhone is still ahead in the smartphone market share. Now that smartphones are entering Korea:

 SK Telecom, Korea’s largest mobile carrier, and Canada’s Research in Motion held an ornate ceremony at a posh Seoul hotel on Dec. 16 to mark the launch of the BlackBerry Bold in the country at the end of this month. It will be the first time the BlackBerry service is offered to Koreans by a major local wireless carrier.

To counter SK’s initiative, KT Freetel, Korea’s second-largest mobile carrier known as KTF, says it plans to introduce Apple’s 3G iPhone in April although it has yet to agree with Apple on pricing and other details. The rush to introduce the iPhone underscores the smartphone race underway among Korean operators trying to increase revenues in a market with a mobile subscription rate of well over 90%.

Basically, same strategy as in Spain, mobile phone companies choosing a device and making campaign. Personally, I am not a fan at all of Telefonica, but this time, Apple got me trapped, pure charm

PD: This is written with a Mac, of course

Paul Graham writes that VCs are not that needed anymore and this situation is clearly new.  Since VC funding is drying up during recession and there were responsible for the dot com bubble Internet startup burst, the situation is now startups coming up without their need.

This change of philosophy could be not that good: “If founders decide VCs aren’t worth the trouble, that could be bad for VCs. When the economy bounces back in a few years and they’re ready to write checks again, they may find that founders have moved on”.

I believe that many Internet startups are based on low costs and high efficiency. This means that thanks to Open Source and the other employment of the entrepreneur startups can still pop up. Not only I believe this, but I have experienced it and I have seen some students as proofs-of-concept of this approach.

Illustration by Nick Dewar

I have always thought that Health was one of those domains where people did not want to mingle and talk about, because privacy is a concern and also it belongs to the very intimate dimension.

However, after reading this “Health 2.0: Patients as Partners” Business Week article , I changed my mind a bit. Social Networks such as PatientsLikeMe, SugarStats, Disaboom and Trusera, show a different viewpoint where people can share their thoughts. Why not having a similar initiative in Spain?

I believe that a definitely interesting-to-see and wonderful promising initiative is the one led by my colleague and friend Miguel Angel Mayer (apart from his incredible CV, just check it out, envy, envy, he is a wonderful person),   the Web Medica Acreditada (WMA, something like “Certified Medical Web”). Fundamentally, this initiative helps to verify and certify the huge amount of information that exists on the Web by ensuring the quality of the content.

I strongly believe this is tremendously necessary in a world where patients are a click from all kind of information in such a sensitive domain. An initiative like the one led by Miguel Angel is a must.

I hate faxes. I have always hated and not understood faxes. That being said, today it´s time for fobias. I also starting hating printers too much. I have never ever enjoyed a printer at home, simply because I was buying cheap ones and they gave horrible results. I don´t think I ever had a printer working for more than 20 days.

That being said, I can not live without printers, simply because I read a lot and there are many things, specially to correct, I can´t help printing. And mostly, that is, because I love paper, it is a great feeling to touch it and drag one´s eyes on it.

That being said again, now that everybody knows I am a paper freak, I had the crazy experience of buying a HP laserjet (outstanding) printer and not being able to a) install it, because the (flawful) CD was not working and recognizing my OS and b) bringing an USB cable and hence giving me the chance to start. Printers are annoying, unnerving and I would destroy them all with all hands.

Uuuufff… I feel much better now. Who says a blog is not therapy?