So, it’s official: There’s a new king of consumer health sites in town!

On OCT 3rd, Revolution Health and Everyday Health (along with their respective network of health-related websites) officially announced a merger. The merging of these networks — which are currently ranked #2 and #3 for consumer health-related web destinations — will lead to a combined audience size that will overshadow the long-time leader in this landscape, WebMD, making this new entity (called Waterfront Media) the #1 player in terms of sheer numbers.

Here’s a couple of quotes from their news release:

Waterfront Media, the largest private online health company, and Revolution Health Network, another leading online health information company, today announced that they have signed a definitive agreement to merge that will create a new powerhouse in the online health space. With this merger, the Everyday Health Network, which is operated by Waterfront Media, will now include RevolutionHealth.com and all the online properties associated with the Revolution Health Network, forming the most comprehensive online destination designed to enable consumers to live healthier lives every day. Both companies’ boards of directors unanimously approved the merger…

The combined company is projected to have more than 20 million unique users* and, according to a comScore Plan Metrix custom report for the month of June, will be the market leader in audience reach for 23 health conditions.

Personally, I’ve felt for a while now that WebMD has invested too much in branding and not enough in really innovating in a way that makes them more appealing or engaging. I think they’ve been too reliant and over confident about their market dominance, which they used to leverage advertising sales, while offering relatively little in return to clients — i.e. pharma — probably because they could; so this might be a nice wake-up call for them to know that they are no longer the biggest player in town.

Anyway, Joshua Seidman over at The Health Care Blog (THCB) has an interesting perspective and commentary about this merger, particularly from an information therapy (Ix) point of view (which is a new concept to me, but sounds very interesting):

There’s no doubt that they will get a lot of consumer traffic to their network of sites. One of the things that remains unclear for both Waterfront and WebMD is to what extent they will serve primarily as reference sources versus playing a greater role in consumers’ own health management. The answer may very well lie in the degree to which they provide information therapy (Ix), not just health information…

From the Ix perspective, accurate and comprehensive health information is only one third of the equation: the right information to the right person at the right time. Proactively delivering (or prescribing) that information “just in time” or at the particular moment in care that someone needs it to make an informed decision or support a healthy behavior requires another level of functionality. Similarly, tailoring that information to the particular needs of a diverse population in a way that is actually understandable, meaningful, engaging and actionable requires considerably more sophistication than the science and technology that supported a 1.0 world.

Definitely check out Joshua’s blog post for more details and also read the interesting discussion that takes place in the comments section at the end of the post.