The Blog of Matthew Tendler (archived)

2011-11-17T12:21:00.001-05:00

Over the years, companies I have co-founded have received quite a bit of press and media coverage. Here are a few that I'm particularly proud of:

Wired Magazine – How to Live by the Numbers

Inc. Magazine – Take a Seat, Take it Easy

Washington Post – [D.C.’s] Latest Crop of Start-ups

Real Simple Magazine – 6 Items to Simplify Your Life

Diabetes Research Institute – Matthew Tendler's Story

MobiHealthNews – 10 mobile diabetes management companies

Diabetes Health – Diabetes and the iPhone

Roche Diagnostics – ACCU-CHEK partners with MYLEstone Health

DiabetesMine – Small but Mighty: Creating “Glucose Buddy”

Sneak Peek

2011-01-29T13:27:00.004-05:00

Check out Telcare.com for more info on this awesome tech.

Extreme Carb Counting: drawing everything you eat

2010-12-15T12:54:00.005-05:00

And you thought writing down the number of carbs you eat for your nutritionist/educator/MD was burdensome! Try drawing everything you eat, like this guy.

Fooducate interviewed the illustrator, and here's an excerpt:

[Fooducate] Has [drawing every food] had any effect on your food choices?

[Illustrator David] Indirectly it has, I find myself looking for interesting packaging and the more exposure I have been getting the more conscious I am of what I am eating and also how I could be perceived - looking closely at the packaging I have become more aware of the calorie, fat & salt content – this consequently has influenced my choices.

Personally, if I had to draw every food I ate in their original packaging, I'd consume almost nothing with designer packaging, so I'm sure I'd be tremendously healthy....or I'd cheat with some nifty Adobe tools:

Google Needs SEO Help

2010-12-05T10:33:00.002-05:00

Search giant, Google, should work on Search Engine Optimization for Google Health. Amazingly, searching "Personal Health Record" in Google doesn't list the result on the first page.

Playground Computers

2010-12-04T14:24:00.005-05:00

How do we educate children in developing countries, cheaply? Give them computers!

"During a 2 1/2 year period, researchers placed unsupervised playground computer kiosks in rural India (called 'hole-in-the-wall' kiosks), which showed that children exposed to these kiosks learned to use computers on their own and learned computer science, without any classroom teaching for it."

From Open IDEO

Specialty Healthcare, Dog Spaying, and Thailand

2010-12-03T13:10:00.011-05:00

Yesterday, Geri, my English Bulldog, was spayed. Our vet's estimate was $450 including a 'mandatory' overnight stay and pain medication. I researched the internet and found that this was a very inflated price. Instead, I called the Washington Humane Society, spoke to a very helpful receptionist about the spaying process. Here were the main points of the call:

The office performed about a dozen spaying and neuters per day.
The spaying cost $100 and there were additional options that I could choose from once I got to the office.
It was an out-patient procedure so I wouldn't have to miss multiple days of work and could take care of her myself at home.

I arrived early the next morning and was given this sheet:

A simple checklist of health related treatments I could "purchase" while she was already under as well as pain medication for after. I added a Microchip for $35 and a Heartworm test for $15 and Pain Medication for $5. The sheets took less than 5 minutes to fill out.

I thought to myself, "If only Human Healthcare could be this simple..."

This was a perfect example of a "specialty shop" that was, in my opinion, MORE qualified than my vet because of the amount of spaying and neuterings they performed each day. The reason that my vet charged more can be contributed to the overhead cost of the office, along with the extra costs attributed to having a Veterinarian perform the very simple procedure rather than a Technician. This wasn't a problem to me at all... the technicians know everything there is to know about the procedure and there was a Certified Veterinarian in the vicinity, as well, in case there were any issues.

Overseas Hospitals, like Bumrungrad International Hospital in Thailand has world-class doctors and list the prices of their procedures on their website. So I wanted to compare these prices to U.S. based surgeries. I started with coronary angioplasties.

I couldn't find the "average cost for coronary angioplasty in the U.S" via google, but read some testimonials from people who absorbed costs, on average, over $60,000 for their surgery.

These kinds of specialty shops have already began to emerge in Healthcare; a prime example being MinuteClinic. MinuteClinic can diagnose straightforward diseases and can prescribe treatment for these diseases in 1/10th of the time and money than if you went to the hospital.

By creating more specialty shops, we can begin to fix this country's healthcare problems and the burden it has on our economy. Needless to say, it was...exciting...to save money with better all around service from the Humane Society. Of course, Geri is fine after surgery :)

Heroless Healthcare

2010-04-27T09:32:00.002-04:00

The US healthcare sector includes more than 820,000 hospitals, doctor offices, emergency care units, nursing homes, and social services providers with combined annual revenue of more than $1 trillion And yet, I can’t name one famous, supper successful entrepreneur in the sector.

Do smart people avoid the sector because of the hurdles that must be overcome in order to succeed?

Bayer inks deal with Nintendo

2010-04-13T06:45:00.000-04:00

Bayer recently formed a strategic partnership with Nintendo, in an effort to create Didget, a glucose meter that plugs into Nintendo's wildly successful DS. Once plugged in, a game called "Knock 'em Downs World's Fair" automatically loads (is that the best name they could come up with!?). The objective of the game is to reward children to take more blood tests.

Didget has been commercialized in Europe already, but plans on coming to the USA in a month's time.

The most beautiful neck brace I've ever seen

2010-04-12T07:30:00.002-04:00

From Form <---Cool

Smoking on Submarines

2010-04-09T11:38:00.003-04:00

Is there an App for smoking on submarines? If not, I smell a market opportunity...

iPad Diabetes Applications

2010-04-08T10:40:00.003-04:00

The introduction of the iPad will be the second coming of the App Store. Developers are able to (a) make more money because of higher price points, and (b) create more attractive, more powerful apps.

For those looking to create diabetes iPad apps, there are plenty of opportunities. The only result I found was MyNetDiary, which isn't a true diabetes app. However, it does provide a good example for the opportunities developers currently have.

MyNetDiary for iPad sells for $9.99 (which is a significant price increase from their iPhone App) and the reviews state that “the iPad version is lifechanging.” From what I can see from the iPhone App which sells for $0.99 no one has called it lifechanging.

Think about those price differences in percentages: their iPad app has been marked up more than 900% !!!!

dLife.com's hidden iPhone page

2010-03-15T12:35:00.006-04:00

While searching dLife.com I stumbled on this iPhone App demonstration page:

The tracker looks eerily like WaveSense's Diabetes Manager, so I would expect a lot of the same functionality.

One thing that I noticed was that this dLife App, which was mentioned and showcased in one of the dLife TV episodes a few months back, was that it is packed with Diabetes Goods.

The question for me isn't whether this is going to be useful, my questions are:
1) Am I going to need Internet connectivity am I going to need to access certain features?
2) What's the load time going to be?

Remember, graphic packed, video streaming, community accessible Apps often times make for slow load times...which is exactly what you DON'T want if you're trying to quickly record your blood glucose numbers.

Even though it appears as if there are links to download the dLife App, they are static graphics and don't lead anywhere.

In your lifetime...

2010-03-02T12:26:00.002-05:00

courtesty of executivehm.com
with graphic/text contributions from yours truly

Sugar Free Propaganda

2010-02-28T20:06:00.007-05:00

Let's forget about the fat and calorie content of these snacks for a second. I'm willing to bet that 8/10 diabetics don't realize that sugar free treats DO AFFECT YOUR BLOOD SUGAR and I bet 99/100 of your family members don't realize it.

Hershey's Sugar Free Reese

I wish that Hershey's publicized the amount of carbohydrates in their Sugar Free treats as well as they brand the name "Sugar Free". Do you think "Sugar Free" snacks have caused more uninformed harm than good?

Equally important, PLEASE see the ADA Website to see how sugar alcohols (a classic marketing tool for these sugar-free snacks) makes your blood sugar change.

Bad coding is the cause of bad accuracy?

2010-02-23T10:51:00.000-05:00

Type 2 diabetes in children

2010-02-22T23:31:00.007-05:00

SHOULD THESE CHILDREN BE TAKEN AWAY FROM THEIR PARENTS? IS THIS ABUSE? THIS IS NOT OK. THIS IS ABSURD.

Doctors are scared to put you on insulin

2010-02-21T18:46:00.003-05:00

Insulin has saved my life, so I love that clear liquid like nothing else in this world. However, I'm very surprised with the high percentage of Type 2's that consider taking insulin a "failure". In fact, it's gotten so bad that doctors actually delay their recommendation because they fear the patient will view this as a failure.

"There are multiple reasons for patient nonadherence to insulin therapy; however, patients must be made to understand, early in the course of the disease, the progressive nature of type 2 diabetes and that exogenous insulin is an additional therapeutic option to help them achieve and maintain adequate glycemic control."

ARE YOU A TYPE 2 THAT IS AFRAID OF INSULIN? DO YOU FEEL LIKE A PRESCRIPTION TO LANTUS WOULD BE EQUIVALENT TO YOU FAILING?

How hospitals are becoming the new Four Seasons

2010-02-19T12:36:00.005-05:00

This hospital is sexy, all right. Although the Fast Company hospital coverage focuses more on the Green initiatives, my mind goes directly to the architecture and the features:

Imagination at work:

1) Cafeteria, not only environmentally friendly, but Google Cafesque

2)Greenery and Scenery: Research shows that providing the sick with scenery actually makes them "require less medication, experience less pain, and recover quicker."

3) iPad enabled (Wishful thinking): Let's wait to see what Apple comes out with in the next iPad versions. Hopefully, cameras, multitasking and more convenient sizing will help the iPad move into the medical space. Picture iPads in every room, teleconferencing with family members, and custom APIs that give you Wikipedia explanations of the mumbo-jumbo your doc just told you and automatically connect you to patients in your exact conditions via services like Patients Like Me.

Looks like Kayak and Expedia are going to have to expand their search capabilities to these hospitals.

Bikinis + Facebook = (-)Health Insurance

2010-02-18T16:21:00.003-05:00

I'VE BEEN TELLING MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY TO BE CAREFUL ABOUT WHAT YOU POST ON FACEBOOK, BUT THIS TAKES THAT ADVICE TO A WHOLE NEW LEVEL!

Nathalie Blanchard, 29, took long-term sick leave from her job at IBM in Bromont, Quebec, more than a year ago for severe depression. She was receiving monthly benefits from her insurance company, Manulife.

When Blanchard called Manulife to inquire why the payments dried up, the insurance company said that "I'm available to work, because of Facebook," she told CBC television.

She said that Manulife cited several pictures Blanchard had posted on her social networking website page, including some showing her enjoying herself during a male strip-tease show at a Chippendales bar, celebrating her birthday and bathing in the sun.

Based on these postings, the firm claimed Blanchard was no longer depressed.
(rawstory.com)

I UNDERSTAND THIS IS IN QUEBEC SO IT MIGHT BE DIFFERENT IN THE U.S. BUT DID YOU KNOW HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANIES ARE NOW MONITORING OUR FACEBOOK?

Breastfeeding

2010-02-16T09:00:00.000-05:00

We have all read the advantages of breast-feeding. My question, however, is that a lot of these advertisements show no compassion for mothers who physically can't breastfeed.

Do you think advertisements like the one above is too aggressive? If you were unable to breast-feed or you chose not to, how does the ad make you feel?

I wonder how the federal initiative Text4Baby is going to handle this subject.

Changing Direction of the Blog

2010-02-15T20:28:00.005-05:00

Why am I changing the direction you ask?

Well, for one thing, there just ain't enough going on in the iPhone Diabetes space and I'm growing tired of just posting about that.

There is SO much going on in other parts of mobile health, healthcare initiatives, consumer-driven healthcare and the likes, and I really want to cover these things, as well. Over the last month, I've said to myself at least a dozen times:

"WOW! THIS IS SO COOL, I'M GOING TO BLOG ABOUT IT!" but then I've stopped myself because I've also felt that this blog should be very focused. Well, too bad, enough is enough!

WII FIT NOT FITTING UP TO ITS HYPE

Doesn't it always come down to how much work you put in?

A recent Forbes article covered some of the lack of results Wii Fit owners are seeing. "What Nintendo did is they tapped into that desire people have to be healthier… Everyone wants to work out, but nobody really wants to put the effort into it."

In our TuDiabetes exercise results we saw that many people were using Wii Fits in their 14 minutes of required exercise; and people did see results. However, while over my friends apartment for the Super Bowl, I saw his Wii Fit and asked him if he really used it. He replied that he rarely did.

It doesn't surprise me that the Wii Fit is equivalent to the dusty treadmill you have in your basement. Personally, I've never used one, but I'm willing to bet there are some ways to get more involved with your Fit if you haven't used it in a while.

Simple things will make you get back into it:
1) Leave your Wii Fit out in the open, not in a drawer.
2) Encourage your children to play it with you.
3) Start writing down your results! Once you see some progress, you're much more likely to continue!

Purchasing reviews in the App Store

2010-01-20T12:20:00.004-05:00

About a week ago, I received an Email from a company that claims:

"We are not an advertising network. We take the guess work out from traditional CPM and CPC advertisements. We acquire users and reviews for our clients on a fixed cost per user basis in a direct accountable manner. We help our clients bootstrap and gather feedback to improve their apps."

What this means is that for a rather low cost, we could become part of this network and obtain lots of reviews from their "employees". I was pretty flabbergasted by this Email. I hadn't known these sorts of networks existed.

The company (whose name I won't mention because of fear they'll unleash their network on a 1-star mission against Glucose Buddy) claims they could get hundreds of reviews for any app in a MATTER OF DAYS!

Fake reviews will always be a problem on the App Store. You can identify fake reviews pretty easily:
1) If an App had a lot of one word reviews like "Great!". If someone is going to take the time to review, it is unlikely they are just going to write "Great!"
2) If an Apps first written reviewers have also reviewed the company's other Apps, they are probably fake.

I wonder if Apple will start identifying reviewers that are part of this "network" and banning them? Regardless, you can rest assured that we will not be purchasing any reviews.

8 simple steps to achieve 1,000 Facebook Fans

2010-01-11T13:36:00.007-05:00

Glucose Buddy has just reached 1,000 Facebook Fans. Being primarily a manual logging system for diabetics that have iPhones, we have a very niche market. We've implemented a number of techniques that worked well, and not so well, to reach our 1,000 Facebook fan milestone; and make no mistake, we consider this a milestone. Although we can't share exactly how many downloads we have received, the ratio of download to Facebook Fan membership is extremely attractive by industry standards. For example, I've identified dozens of companies who probably have 100 times more users but only 5 times more Facebook fans.

Your objective is to get people to become fans on the cheap. Here are 8 simple steps that we've taken to bring Facebook Fans to the page:

1) Get rid of the messy Facebook URL. Create a directed url either via Facebook or on your own. We have http://facebook.com/glucosebuddy and http://facebook.glucosebuddy.com

2) Add your Facebook Fan link to our Activation Email, which all users receive when they sign up for your website. Make it fun (if appropriate) as a way to say to your users, "Hey, we're like you, we use Facebook"...cheesy? perhaps, but effective. Our's says: "Who the #@*% are these guys? http://facebook.glucosebuddy.com/"

This is a good way to gain impressions for free. At the point of sign up, users are excited and are ready to be engaged.

Admittedly, we were worried that this link would distract the user from the email's primary objective (clicking the activation email), so we put it on the bottom of the activation email. We've had no complaints and this technique has worked efficiently. I'll note that I do not think, at this point, that the link has distracted any users from the Activation Link.

3) Add a link and a graphic to your homepage. Don't put it in a clustered place.

4) Give sneak peaks in your Fan Page. Give users a reason to stay.

5) Give videos in your Fan Page. Give users a reason to stay.

6) Keep it clean. Get rid or content that doesn't offer any value and is 'fluff'.

7) Follow this site: http://www.facebook.com/VirginAmerica

8) Here's a tip for advertising via Facebook ads: Make sure you are measuring Return on Investment (ROI). I may be totally off-base for this, but I'm willing to bet that 75% of the advertising that is done on Facebook is done on a whim by small companies who just want to advertise. Make sure you measure what happens AFTER a user joins your Facebook site. Don't settle for the argument 'You can't measure ROI in Social Media." Bull shit. You just don't want to take the time to crunch the numbers. Branding is one thing, but at the end of the day you must talk to your customers, post surveys, ask questions to see if you are making any real money from your ad spending. At this early stage (pre 1,000 facebook fans) I personally believe that if you have a free model based on advertising (like blogs, forums,etc), ad spending on Facebook is not a good business decision.

If you offer a premium service, then you should use Facebook ads to drive people to your website, then measure how many make purchases. If you implement your Facebook Fan page correctly into your website and sign-up process, then you'll be killing two birds with one stone.

The point is spending money to get users to join your Facebook fan page is likely a waste.

My Omnipod Marriage: Will it last?

2009-12-28T10:44:00.005-05:00

1) When my doctor agreed that I could benefit from the Omnipod, I got a call everyday from Insulet employees who all left the same message: "Congratulations! We have great news for you! You have been approved for a new Omnipod!"
- Positive: Quick follow-up.
- Negative: Cheesy, just cheesy. It's unnecessary for lots of different employees to leave me the same 'personalized' message. It's not personal when I check my cell phone messages and listen to three different people leaving me the same congratulatory message.

2) Trainer calls me as soon as I order my pods. I'm in the middle of something when she calls (it was in the middle of the day). I tell her I'm busy she'll have to call me back. I don't hear back from her.
- Positive. Quick follow-up
- Negative. Never hear back. Unused pumps taunt me.

3) I tweet:

Insulet contacts me next day.
- Postive: Insulet is monitoring Twitter. Very impressive.
- Negative: None

4) Trainer is amazing, deals with my neurosis.

- Positive: Important to be patient, understanding, and supportive with diabetics.
- Negative: None.

5) Love wearing OmniPod on lower back and no problems (knock on wood.)
Working out is easy and hasn't interfered. I've also heard that they are coming out with even smaller hardware.
- Positive: Great hardware. Continuing to improve. Seems like they 'get it'. I already see my numbers going down and I can say with 100 percent certainty that my BG Standard Deviation is decreasing.
- Negative: It is a bit bulky.

6) PDM begins to turn off at random times. I call Insulet on Christmas Day and tell them about my problem. Earl, from Insulet, is understanding but can't send another PDM until December 28th. I'm worried about faulty PDM.
- Positive: Customer support on Christmas Day (although not overly impressed with this one).
- Negative: A medical company should be able to send a medical device on a holiday weekend.

So, overall I'm having a very positive experience with my Omnipod. It has not slowed me down at the gym whatsoever. My numbers are down and I feel a lot better. The pump has really put me in much better control of my diabetes.

I'll keep this post updated as a way to follow-up.

A Billion Little Experiments

2009-12-21T15:29:00.002-05:00

My friend Rajiv Mehta wrote a very interesting paper, "A Billion Little Experiments". In it, Rajiv talks about his vision of making life easier on patients through the use of various mobile and web based tools.

Rajiv and I have been going back and forth about a number of ideas via Email for the last week or so. I'm going to share some of our conversation:

"... We, who provide the tools, should help people do what *they* want to do. Too many of today's adherence/tracking tools are designed with a narrow framework, from the perspective of someone interested in a disease or a drug, rather than on first and foremost helping the individual. Over 50% of the working age population has two or more chronic health issues. What they need to do for their daily health regimen spans across a wide variety of items. Each individual is interested only in what he's interested in -- no more, no less -- and our tools should ideally provide this flexibility. Health is an area where almost everyone has a slightly different need, and our products must be designed appropriately."

"What's important is to understand ease-of-use of the *entire* experience from the *user's* perspective and design the solution to maximize the quality of the experience. "

The thing I most liked about the paper is how Rajiv makes everything very simple and straightforward to understand. A Billion Little Experiments reads like a short story, which made it that much more enjoyable.

Lose It! - Evolutionary or Revolutionary?

2009-12-06T18:06:00.010-05:00

Tom and I had a long conversation about a week ago after we upgraded to Lose It! 2.0 for the iPhone. The discussion revolved around whether the changes the Lose It! team made was "evolutionary" or "revolutionary" for Mobile Healthcare. Both of us agreed that Lose It! is a stellar platform; combining weight management, social networking, and smart-phones in a way that has been exponentially more effective than any other piece of software, ever. In 2.0, Lose It followed our model of pushing all logs to a website that allows users to view their progress on their desktops. And then they took this a step further by allowing "friending" between users. In a few simple clicks, you can see how your friends are doing on their weight loss quest.

While I don't think we can necessarily call Lose It! 2.0 a strong disruptive technology (like refrigerators, PCs, and firearms), I do feel it is revolutionary in the same sense that Facebook and the iPhone are revolutionary, both of which have not prospered because of new physical technologies. There have been other social networks (Friendster, MySpace), other touch screens phones (Simon), both Facebook and Apple concentrated on total user experience much better than any of their predecessors, and this paid off handsomely.

Similarly, Lose It! is not the first to create social networking in apps. There are lots of Apps that have Facebook Connect, and of course there are other sources to connect with your friends like AIM, Twitter, even text messaging. However, Lose It! probably has a six-figure daily userbase and these users are extremely focused on losing weight. Because they have such a high userbase, it's likely that users already have friends that utilize the program. I believe this sort of mobile camaraderie will be revolutionary as companies create more effective health programs.

Personally, when I work out at the gym, I always end up lifting more weight or running a bit longer when I'm there with a friend. Whether the reason is to keep up with him or to try and show him up is really irrelevant. The bottom line is that a companion often times motivates you in some way. Lose It! has done this more effectively than ever before using the iPhone.

Big Blue Test results

2009-11-20T18:07:00.003-05:00

Glucose Buddy/Matt Tendler video shoot with the Diabetes Research Institute

2009-11-20T09:32:00.005-05:00

About a month ago, the Diabetes Research Institute (DRI) asked me to participate in a video they would include in one of their donor newsletters. I had written a heartfelt blog about my visit to the DRI in Miami, and was more than happy to participate. You can find the new video, which details my life with diabetes and Glucose Buddy, here.

New Glucose Buddy 3.0 Separates from the Pack

2009-11-18T01:50:00.006-05:00

Apple has approved us and we are live, baby!

The goal of Glucose Buddy - Diabetes Helper 3.0 is to help you achieve realistic, personal goals through logging. The goal IS NOT to just make a prettier logging machine (even though we did that, too).

Just the thought of "logging your numbers" is pretty darn overwhelming, right? With the new tools we've included in Glucose Buddy 3.0, we've supplied you with a few ways to get started. You see, we're people with diabetes too, and we feel that our main objective should not be to make simple graphic improvements to Glucose Buddy. We want to dig deeper. So, we made GB 3.0.

Some features you will not find in any other Diabetes Apps:

Push Notifications that might help you create a realistic routine of checking your blood sugar.
- These will be sent at whatever time you'd like OR automatically remind you after the App registers a certain event (e.g. you took medicine 2 hours ago and it's ready to check your BG).

Interactive, proprietary education program from ACCU-CHEK® called Testing In Pairs.
- A tool aimed at seeing how the things you do affect your BG.
"Understanding" logs is really, in our opinion, the hardest part of logging. And if you have doubts that you'll be able to gain any true knowledge from your logs, you likely won't last more than a few days. This tool aims to help you understand how your blood sugar responds to certain events in just 7 days.

There's a lot more inside and you can download GB for free by clicking here .

Android for People with Diabetes

2009-11-11T18:39:00.006-05:00

I must confess, I picked up a Droid the first day it hit Verizon stores on November 6th and I've never looked back since. Doing a search for "diabetes" in the Android Market yields more results than I originally anticipated.

Here is the list:
OnTrack (Free, 4.5 stars from 76 ratings, 1000-5000 downloads, )
eDiabetes Pro Trial Version (Free, 2.5 Stars from 8 ratings, 1000 - 5000 downloads)
eDiabetes Pro ($1.99, 5 Stars from 2 ratings, 50 - 100 downloads)
DiabetesManager ($5.00, 4.5 stars from 4 ratings, 50-100 downloads)
AgileDiabetes ($0.99, 5 stars from 2 ratings, <50 downloads)

The Market doesn't give a release date on the apps.

For this review I'm going to focus on OnTrack since it was the first one I downloaded and seems to be the most mature app of the bunch.

You can see a really big difference between the design of this Android App compared to similar Apps for the iPhone.
OnTrack is definitely an Android App in this way. It's very straightforward and not especially pretty. Small things like using the full keyboard to enter numeric values especially peeve me.

The options (just like Android in general) are not at all limited. Users can enter Glucose, Food, Exercise, Medication, and Weight logs. You are able to graph Glucose, Glucose Daily Average, Glucose Range, Carbs Daily Total and Weight.

There are an overall lack of on-screen shortcut buttons, forcing a lot of extra clicks for simple tasks. For instance, it took me 9 clicks to add "NovoLog" to the list of medications (default medications are Humalin and Humalog).

The bigger question I find myself asking is, "Will Android users like more heavy-duty Apps because, after all, they went out and purchased the Android instead of an iPhone". My answer: Probably, but not at the expense of sacrificing basic usability.

Android in itself is a unique beast. It's packed with different functions and I find myself digging deeper and deeper into it everyday. However, Google did this strategically and I promise you they never lost sight of the design interface. A lot of the Android App Developers, on the other hand, seem like they feel that since the Android platform is more complete and less intuitive, that they can spend less time on flow and more time on packing features. When iPhone Developers begin developing an App, they know the app needs to come close to the aesthetic of the iPhone Operating System that surrounds it. I think Android developers don't have that same feeling.

*These images were taken with an iPhone 3GS

New Sanofi-Aventis App

2009-11-06T09:11:00.011-05:00

We saw another powerful App come to the iPhone space the other day. This time it comes from Sanofi Aventis. The app is called GoMeals and it contains Calorie King, a very thorough and complete food database. It runs about about 20 - 30k a year to license so all users should definitely feel like they are getting their money's worth since this App is free. Pretty exciting.

Description includes: "Powered by the CalorieKing nutritional database, Go Meals allows you to search thousands of foods and dishes from popular restaurants."

So far this app has received excellent written reviews, which for a free app is the most accurate measure of how good it really is. Specifically, I think that this App will do very well with the diabetes demographic. Will it de-reign Lose It! which is powered by Esha Data food database? Probably not.

Even with an inferior food database (arguably), LoseIt! will remain the number 1 heavyweight of this space. It's ease of use clearly defines the iPhone user- Simple, straightforward and easy. Personally, I believe that Sanofi-Aventis should brand the app more around the impressive, expensive food database that it packs. With so many different apps to occupy your time presenting your app as the ultimate food database would probably gain more users for them.

Sanofi Aventis is really the second pharmaceutical company to enter the Store, the first that I know of being WaveSense.

Twitter's Demise

2009-10-30T00:28:00.002-04:00

In May 2009, I posted a blog titled "Twitter This, Twitter That" talking about my forecast on Twitter. Today, I read an article in the New York Times that spoke volumes about Twitter's value. I honestly see no way Twitter is going to survive. Yes, there are a lot of people that will disagree with me, but nonetheless I don't think anyone can argue that the service is getting a bit...old. And I think more and more people and more and more businesses are starting to realize what a time waster it really is:

Twitter this, Twitter that [May, 2009]

It's pretty absurd for me to predict a long term demise of Twitter. Nonetheless, I'm going to do it, especially after reading this article, brought to my attention by Manny Hernandez. Here's a copy of the article:

Twitter Users Don't Stick Around

April 28, 2009

-By Mike Shields, Mediaweek

Twitter’s audience is exploding. Now if only they could get people to stick around.

Over 60 percent of people who sign up to use the popular (and tremendously discussed) micro-blogging platform do not return to using it the following month, according to new data released by Nielsen Online. In other words, Twitter currently has just a 40 percent retention rate, up from just 30 percent in previous months--indicating an “I don’t get it factor” among new users that is reminiscent of the similarly-over hyped Second Life from a few years ago.

Nielsen found that Twitter’s unique user base doubled in March. But most newbies aren’t coming back. “People are signing up in droves,” wrote David Martin, vp, primary research, Nielsen Online in a blog posting on Tuesday (Apr. 28). “But despite the hockey-stick growth chart, Twitter faces an uphill battle in making sure these flocks of new users are enticed to return to the nest.”

Martin sees this low retention rate a long-term problem for Twitter, citing growth patterns for previous Web sensations. According to Martin, a low retention rate limits how much a site can consistently grow its audience ; by his calculation, a 40 percent retention rate results in just a 10 percent reach level. That limits how big a property can get over time, since there are a finite number of potential new users.

“A high retention rate doesn’t guarantee a massive audience, but it is a prerequisite,” he wrote. “There simply aren’t enough new users to make up for defecting ones after a certain point.”

Of course, it’s early in Twitter’s development, and the average Web user may simply need more time to understand its benefits and change their behavior . But Martin sees ominous signs. For one, previous Web calculation MySpace and Facebook had double Twitter’s retention rate at a similar growth stage, and their retention increased over time.

“Twitter has enjoyed a nice ride over the last few months, but it will not be able to sustain its meteoric rise without establishing a higher level of user loyalty,” wrote Martin. “Frankly, if Oprah can’t accomplish that, I’m not sure who can.”
Source: Mediaweek.com

I just can't get into Twitter. I won't lie, I've tried. But for a person who has permanently deleted Blackberry Messenger or BBM (perhaps the one and only thing millions of teens across the nation purchase Blackberry's for), up-to-date,second by second updates on your life is unappealing to me. Just the thought leaves a bitter Blackberryish taste in my mouth.

I believe that this blog allows me to organize thoughts for a particular sector (or at least I try to stay as much as possible within that specific sector) but twittering random thoughts has no appeal to me, either as a writer or a reader. However, where I do find twittering EXTREMELY useful is for conferences that I am not able to attend. For instance, I was able to stay up to date with the Health 2.0 conference by various twittering of the event, which was easier for me than making the 4 hour drive to Boston with one working eye.

I'm looking forward to see if twitter is some sort of fad or if it keeps up. I mean, look at the paradigm shifts:
30 years ago if you met a girl in a bar you gave her your phone number
20 years ago you would give her your pager number
10 years ago you would give her your cell number/AIM screen name
5 years ago you'd give your Email
2 Years ago you would tell her you'd PIN her (via Blackberry)
Today you would just tell her you're on Facebook (implying to 'befriend' you)
Next year, will we be telling new people to just follow you on twitter?

I sure hope not. Call me an old soul (or call me the only Tech writer who has a hint of Luddite in his blood), but I still value the human interaction with people. With all of these tools it's making it easier and easier for people to keep away from that physical interaction, instead opting for a relationship entirely behind a electronic piece of hardware that says "MacBook" in front.

Am I worried about people who have experienced the old way of electronics? NO.
Am I worried about younger generations with all the technology that pushes "stay indoors on your computer" rather than "get out there, meet people, participate?" YES.

Our 1 Year Old :)

2009-10-28T21:14:00.008-04:00

October 28 marks the first birthday of our beloved Glucose Buddy.

GB has been through a lot, including some pretty heavy competition like a meter manufacturer App, a veteran software development company, and dozens of other diabetes-based tools. Through it all, GB is still the undisputed most popular Diabetes App on the App Store... not bad for a 1 year old.

GB has learned a lot since his birth. He's learned about memory efficiencies, design interface, web synchronization, A1c's, the "tech-diabetic", social networking, blogging, etc. Sure, he has a lot more to learn, but we like his progress thus far, and we know he's got a lot more life in him. [Trust me, we KNOW].

So, how did GB learn so much? Well, he learned a lot from his parents. Tom Xu, his original creator, designer, and programmer sure as heck provided him with tough love when GB needed disciplining. However, like any parent, Tom has always been there to give unconditional TLC when GB cried about a "bug" bite.

More than anything, GB learned from his immediate family; all of you! Thousands of conversations, Emails, suggestions, complaints, testimonials, tears, laughs and hours spent by Glucose Buddy users helping us shape the man we all want GB to grow up to be.

So, THANK YOU! We hope you intend on staying a part of GB's life. We all need family; GB is no exception.

the Pipeline

2009-10-20T15:07:00.010-04:00

Today, we're starting a few projects that are going to increase the usability of each person's logs tremendously.

There is way too much data that Glucosebuddy.com doesn't allow you to play with. For instance, logs that you might have taken 2 years ago and would like to run through our analysis systems.

We've also recognized that even though GB is just about the coolest thing you've ever used, your doctors probably aren't utilizing it as much as possible. We have a few things up our sleeves that are going to help you get them more involved, such as prettier page prints that you can just bring right into him/her.

In other news, we're working on a pretty sweet advertisement/short film about glucose buddy. I don't really know if I'd consider it an advertisement or not, we just felt like letting our creative sides kinda run wild.

Customer-driven medicine and the steps it needs to take

2009-10-13T15:09:00.004-04:00

Brian Dolan of MobiHealthNews covered a Brookings Institute Publication entitled, "Customer-Driven Medicine: How To Create A New Health Care System". The author of the findings is Darrell West.

“Among the specific changes that are required [for Customer-Driven Medicine] include:

1) changes in public and private insurance coverage that reimburse health care providers for mHealth care, remote monitoring, electronic communications with physicians, e-prescribing, and downloading medical tests to cell phones and other mobile devices;

2) rewarding physicians who provide positive health outcomes for their patients, as opposed to paying them for the quantity of tests they have ordered;

3) greater patient encouragement for preventive health care, good diet, and regular exercise activities and creation of a Preventive Medicine Fund that covers gym memberships, exercise equipment, flu shots, diet advice, smoking cessation programs, and substance abuse treatment;

4) development of a good health rewards program similar to good driver discounts that provides benefits to patients who lead healthy lifestyles.”

If you are interested in reading a thought-provoking outline of how we can change health in America using technology, I suggest you read Darrell's work. I am obviously bias towards the iPhone, but I truly believe the iPhone's Technology, if utilized correctly, could be the center of everything this publication talks about.

I think companies get worried about making software and hardware add-on solutions that revolve around the phone because they think their revenues will drop. If Company X no longer sells their own marked-up hardware solution (instead opting for a simpler proprietary solution that marries to the iPhone), then Company X is nervous about their profits. They are also worried about the cut they'll have to give Apple.

I disagree on many levels:
1) Company X can mark-up more than before. For example: Meter manufacturers can make a cheap add-on to the iPhone, utilizing their current technology and charge about 50 dollars for this meter, rather than focus on giving it away for free.
2) As Apple's iPhone gets better and grows, Company X's hardware grows with it. Essentially, Company X will be riding on Apple's back. That is a damn strong back to be carried on.
3) Company X can provide an open API for software developers to work on better ways to manage the health information the hardware add-on sends to the iPhone.
4) There are lots of ways for Company X to utilize the iPhone Buzz Word to grow their own Social Presence and Digital Branding.

Even More Diabetes Apps

2009-09-29T23:27:00.004-04:00

They just keep on coming!

First, a seller by the name of Michael Heinz seems like he's trying to generate some money by recreating similar logging apps such as "Diabetes Grapher (Documentation)", "MedValues Pro", "MedValues One", "MedValues One". From the screenshots, it looks like he adds and subtracts a different logging ability to each one (IE: one has blood pressure and pulse, and another has weight). None of these Apps have any ratings or reviews.

Next up, we have "Hypo" made be Phillippe Mougin from the company jchicken.com. I love that company name. This one tells you how many grams you need to correct your hypoglycemia. So if you typed in 40 mg/dl it could tell you to eat 25 grams of sugar (hypothetically). Phillippe is obviously not a diabetic since the fundamental flaw is that if you're hypoglycemic you're not going to be opening up your iPhone App to find out exactly how much sugar you should ingest. This one has no reviews either.

"Type 2" is another App which lists restaurants' nutritional menus. There are plenty of better apps out there that do the same thing in my opinion.

"Insulin Calculator" by Chris Bowley is pretty self-explanatory but has gotten some pretty rotten reviews and is now sitting at an average of 2.5 stars.

Another app is [deep breath] "BloodWise Glucose/Blood Sugar Tracking Utility" created by Jonathan Lartigue. One perk in this App is that you can send yourself a CSV file. However, I don't see a way to enter anything but glucose numbers! Any diabetic knows that just knowing your glucose numbers is likely not going to better your control. Which leads me to another point, and this is solely my opinion and based on no hard evidence whatsoever: I find it very suspect that this App has only five 5 star reviews and each of these reviews has written feedback for it. In other words, each person that gave this App a star rating also wrote a long paragraph about how great this app... If you see from Glucose Buddy, we have 1134 star ratings and only 117 reviews, meaning 1/10 people who leave a star rating also write a review. I find it somewhat unbelievable that 100% of the people who left stars also took the time to write up a detailed review of BloodWise. But hey, I could be wrong....

Curing Diabetes through iPhones

2009-09-26T15:51:00.003-04:00

Hi All! It's Mandy, Matt's girlfriend.

If Matt raises $5,000 by Oct.18 via the Curing Diabetes through iPhones Facebook Page, Glucose Buddy promises to create a FREE app that will allow you to donate to charities through your iPhones! I'm sure as most of you know, JDRF walks are right around the corner so there's no time to waste.

Matt works EXTREMELY hard on Glucose Buddy and cares a great deal about all of its members. However, truth be told, he cares a lot more about a Cure...

To find out more about the promise Glucose Buddy has made, view the video blog The Big Promise located on the Facebook.

Thanks for your support,

Mandy

The Supply and Demand of doctor solutions are all out of wack

2009-09-23T11:06:00.013-04:00

This week, I had the pleasure of attending a Health Technology Investment forum by way of invitation from Brian Dolan and Joe Maillie from http://mobihealthnews.com. I saw many interesting products and many not so interesting products, as well.

There were some sectors that I was extremely familiar with like diabetes, obviously, and mobile personal disease management. When I say "personal" I mean that the user either installs software on their home computers or actually carries a separate device home with them.

Something that I'm less familiar with is the doctor-end of this business. This is also the side of Mobile Health that I'm most interested in because I know I can learn the most about it...and that excites me.

One thing I know for sure is that 99% of the products proposed to doctors will not catch on. Doctors are A) smart, B) don't have a lot of time and C) are business people just like you and me.

This is the proposition that many companies give doctors:
Take 1 step backwards and then we'll push you 2 steps forward. In other words, "Give us your time, attention, and money and in time you'll see that our program will make your life easier. There's not enough commercial success to show you peer testimonials so just trust us!" I mean, c'mon! Sure there will be some doctors who buy into this idea, but since the cost of Medical Technology is often so high, the company's ends usually don't justify the means.

This is a technology blog, so I'm sure many of you have heard of Linux, but wouldn't be surprised if you don't know anything about it because only about .75% of the population have ever used it. I've found a pretty good description of the advantages of Linux. To summarize, Linux is FREE, it is much more secure than Windows it gives you more control than Windows, there are more software choices on Linux than on Windows, and the Operating System is less burdensome than bulky Microsoft operating systems. So, why don't you start using Linux right now!?

For the same reason I've never used Linux, you probably won't...because the thought of switching to Linux is absolutely overwhelming. I want to just keep things simple. I'm fairly happy with my Operating System and I'm not looking to optimize every aspect of my computer (even though I spend about 8 hours a day on the computer) if it's going to mean I have to learn something from scratch.

Companies need to stop selling "Linux" type solutions to doctors that have grown to become comfortable with their "Windows" type solutions. In fact, unlike the real Linux, companies require the doctor to pay!

But I'm bored by just criticizing these people. Everyone criticizes, not many can actually change the system.

From my perspective there's two ways to implement doctor change:

1) Make The Doctor Money. Get your software or hardware covered by Payors and make it easy for the doctor to get paid.

If I told you I'd pay you 100 dollars per day to start using Linux, you would probably start using Linux, right? I'd also save a lot of money on unnecessary Sales and Marketing material and employees. The $ sells itself.

This is ideal in theory but had to implement since getting Payors to cover your product is a lengthy and costly process.

2) Testimonials and Recommendations

This is the future. EVERYTHING we do is determined by recommendations, nowadays.

Games-App Store
Music-iTunes
Books-Amazon
Electronics-CNET
Movies-Rottentomatoes

This is the approach we're building into Glucose Buddy. I can't tell you ALL of our plans, but you know that we try to break traditional ways of thinking and managing health and we're determined to continue this success into the Dr.'s Office.

Making our way towards a cure

2009-09-10T12:05:00.013-04:00

While down in Florida, I had the amazing opportunity to visit the Diabetes Research Institute in Miami. The private tour ranged from speaking with Gary Kleiman who provided detailed information on medical advancements on a layman's level to being introduced to all the troops (scientists and bio-med engineers) in the trenches. At each stage, more information was shared with Mandy (my girlfriend) and me than I could have dreamed of.

During the visit, my mind was already churning anticipating the moment I'd be able to share the technology I was seeing with you all. When I returned, I recognized there were so many awesome things that I saw and I was having a hard time outlining where to begin. But suddenly, I realized that I'd be doing you an injustice by just writing about the the new technologies being used because you can find all that out on your own http://www.diabetesresearch.org/Research/ResearchMain.htm and since I'm no scientist, I'd probably fudge up a lot of it anyway. Instead, I'm going to focus on the people that I met and the culture of the Diabetes Research Institute because you can't read about that on any website, and 99.9% of you, unfortunately, will probably never have the opportunity to meet the people working day in and day out to cure your disease.

Let me start off by saying that if my high school science teachers exuded as much excitement about their work as these people did, I think there is a very good chance that medicine and science would have been my chosen career. It is extraordinary to hear scientists and engineers sharing knowledge with me with the kind of enthusiasm for a Cure that I have only witnessed in other people with diabetes.

You know when you're sharing a story with friends and you simply can't hold back a smile because you're so excited to have them hear it? Those same smiles were on the faces of EVERY SINGLE employee. It gave me goosebumps just listening to them. I can only describe it as witnessing greatness. These are some of the top scientists, engineers, and physicians in the world. For them to tell me about their accomplishments and ideas was something I had been looking forward to for a long time. But to hear them share these thoughts with me with such excitement was something that, quite frankly, I was not expecting.

In my previous life on Wall Street, I dealt with a number of scientists, researchers, and professors who were involved in conducting trials for research. In fact, one scientist concentrated solely on Type 2 diabetes. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that every single conversation I had with these people included, in one way or another, complaining about the amount of grant money they were (or rather were not) receiving. That's just the nature of the beast. At the DRI, these feelings, while I'm sure shared, were not mentioned and not focused on.

It is my belief that focusing on negativity like "Why is grant money being pulled?" or "This economy is really screwing me" is totally counter-productive, yet I've seen it be the main focus of so many scientists' minds. It is simply not the case at the DRI.

Another thing I have never experienced on Wall Street, except from friends at Goldman Sachs, is a true love and devotion for the company you work for. Every single person we were introduced to was so passionate about the Diabetes Research Institute that the sentiment seeped out of their pores. There was a sense of morale in the air that many of the top businesses in the world would be envious of. In particular, the DRI has many different focuses, including stem cells, islet harvesting, and auto-immunity drugs, that are all working towards a Cure...just in different ways. The thing that separates the DRI from any other Institute that I know of is that most of this work is being done under the same roof. That creates a mecca of knowledge and expertise in different but complimentary fields.

The results are fantastic. Geniuses from different fields are constantly meeting, brainstorming, and helping each other. Imagine the headquarters of Google, Apple, NASA, GE and Facebook were all in the same building and all these companies were working towards one united goal, and no one was competing. Imagine the results!

A Company's "people" is its biggest asset. Based on this notion, I would value the Diabetes Research Institute as a zillion dollar company. Personally, I will be dedicating a lot more of my time raising funds for the foundation. You should, too.

Also, do yourself a favor, take a few minutes out of your day and watch this Brian Williams report on stem cells.

An islet implant is just a bit larger than a quarter.

This state of the art microscope allows scientists to see how effective islet transplants are through the eyes of a mouse...literally. This new process allows scientists to measure effectiveness exponentially faster than ever before.

You no longer need an iPhone to use Glucose Buddy!

2009-09-08T10:05:00.007-04:00

MYLEstone Health has released the Web version of Glucose Buddy, the most popular diabetes App for the iPhone. With this public release, people with diabetes will no longer need an iPhone or iPod Touch to utilize Glucose Buddy’s powerful logging system.

Glucose Buddy was the first diabetes “app” to utilize one-touch technology to allow iPhone users to push information stored within their Apple devices to a powerful Web-based analysis tool. At www.glucosebuddy.com, thousands of Glucose Buddy users currently use these tools to backup, organize, graph, and print their logs.

“By allowing people with diabetes and parents of diabetics to sign up for Glucose Buddy without the need of an iPhone or iPod Touch, we are providing a platform for millions of people to use our tools to better their own lives”, says co-founder Matthew Tendler.

GBA1c, which is currently a tool for Glucose Buddy users, is the most powerful HbA1c estimator on the Internet. It applies proprietary algorithms to users’ blood glucose logs, allowing them to accurately gage their last three months of blood glucose levels. Certainly not a substitute for proper blood work, GBA1c’s aim is to keep Glucose Buddy users better informed with their bodies all from within the comfort of their own homes.

Glucose Buddy provides a “total logs uploaded” count on their home page. It currently reads 440,000 logs. It is the most popular diabetes specific app on iTunes.

Reinventing the Wheel

2009-08-25T14:43:00.005-04:00

News on two blood glucose apps in iPhone land within the last few days:

1) GlucoRecord has been released. Nothing too new here, however it is the first Diabetes app that allows in-app purchases. For $1.99 a month/$19.99 a year you can connect with their webpage to view your data on the web. Doesn't an app already have that?

2) Islet App has been awarded a $100,000 grant to help innovate diabetes research to create a webpage to view your data on the web...Doesn't an app already have that?

Ditter Article

2009-08-25T14:43:00.004-04:00

I've been working on some research for an upcoming article entitled:
The Ditter Movement: How people with diabetes utilize Twitter.

The research for this article will be 90% generated from Twitter itself. The other 10% will be from my own insight as I begin to submerge deeper and deeper into the Ditter culture.
From what I've learned so far, people with diabetes can very effectively learn and meet people with similar interests. If your interest is diabetes, this social connection can actually decrease $$$ spent on Education and Doctor's visits very easily. It's becoming more and more clear that if you utilize Twitter in a productive way, the ends will justify the means (learning what the hell Twitter is) about 10 fold.

I'll keep you all in the know.

What is GBA1c and how is it so accurate?

2009-08-18T13:37:00.008-04:00

According to a file called "A1c Scope.doc", GBA1c was first documented and outlined on January 13, 2009 on my MacBook. The file contained research into the most important variables for an A1c test. As a went down the list, I began to strategize how we could address these variables with the information that users have in their personal health record/logbook at www.glucosebuddy.com.

Today that calculator, GBA1c, has been released in its beta stage and we feel it is quite revolutionary. We hope you agree.

We've combined a number of proprietary algorithms to estimate what your A1c will be at any given day. The one guideline that we've set is that you MUST have 90 days of logs in order to utilize the function.

Now, I understand that an A1c is not EXACTLY 90 days and there are a few variables that simply can't be measured by using blood glucose logs, so to say that GBA1c can effectively replace an actual A1c blood test is absurd. However you'll get more accurate feedback than ever before using this novel tool.

Screenshots:

If you're a Glucose Buddy iPhone user you can access your GBA1c here.
Don't forget to leave feedback if you are a Glucose Buddy user to support@glucosebuddy.com

Top 3 Diabetes Apps and Their Respectve Advantages

2009-08-16T21:48:00.005-04:00

Insider feedback of what's going on in the store:

WaveSense App Review - Capitalism within the FREE market

2009-08-07T14:16:00.006-04:00

Sonny Xu (co-founder of AgaMatrix) and the boys and girls (I'm so PC) at AgaMatrix have finally brought Glucose Buddy some competition. Having known Sonny and the rest of the team at AgaMatrix for a while now, I would expect nothing less of them. This is a company that does indeed GET IT.

Overall, sexy app, that's for sure. Definitely utilizing the capabilities of the OS not only for functionality but for design. The backgrounds make me happy...and when I'm typing in a 250 mg/dl, I need a bit of background happiness.

The graph is very functional here. Whereas Glucose Buddy has concentrated on giving powerful graph functionality on your desktop, WaveSense did a nice job for those who opt to keep everything within the iPhone screen. One thing I wish was that you had the option of drawing lines in the plot chart but I'm sure there is a design reason that they didn't allow that option.

The share function is very nice for emailing. Their template within the Email client is very clever.

One thing, that bothers me about the logging is no preset Tag for Pre Activity and Post Activity. I know you can add a note for Light, Medium, or Heavy Exercise but that doesn't help me too much as I'd like to see the Effect of Exercise (Before and After) easily.

Also, I saw some tweets about a food database that I'd like to respond to as a diabetic and as a Glucose Buddy co-founder. It might shed some light to users: in software development it's important to keep things slim, work out all the kinks, and then add to it. Especially in the case of WaveSense where their main focus seems to be connecting App - Meter, introducing a food database in Version 1.0 might have caused a lot of bugs and pushed the release of this app back SUBSTANTIALLY. Judging on the thought they put into this app, I'm sure they didn't simply forget about the need for a food database.

One complaint is that I am experiencing some pretty frequent app closings (it will shut down unexpectedly) but that's normal in Version 1's and will be worked out in future memory fixes, I'm sure.

Overall, I think the main difference between WaveSense and Glucose Buddy, from an App point of view, is user preference: whether you want to manipulate all data on the iPhone or whether you'd like to manipulate from your Desktop. From what I'm reading about WaveSense's intention, I believe that our companies might have different, but complimentary, end goals for the diabetic. The life of a diabetic with an iPhone will be SUBSTANTIALLY better by the end of 2010. I can say that with 110% confidence.

It's really pretty freaking awesome. Excellent job, WaveSense.

Does your doctor belong in an insane asylum?

2009-08-03T10:59:00.004-04:00

This is an article I wrote for the JDRF about a month ago:

Albert Einstein said that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Well, is your endocrinologist or educator insane? Does your professional offer you the same advice over and over on how you should lower your BG?

My previous Endo would say, “You have to start logging, so we can recognize trends”. Or sometimes, “no more late night snacking before bed.” How about the always helpful and informative, “Let’s cut down on the carbs to reduce variability in the amount of insulin you give yourself.”

I never walked out of that office with any groundbreaking insight, and from what I’ve learned from talking to many Type 1 diabetics, they haven’t either. The reason we don’t is simple: many of us Type 1ers don’t have the motivation to start logging consistently, or to refrain from eating a small snack before bed, or to just resist a handful of potato chips at your Labor Day barbeque.

The problem for many diabetic professionals is that instructing a patient to do X Y Z is different (and easier) than really getting into their psyche to make them want to do X Y Z. Unfortunately, getting into the psyche of the diabetic is the only thing that will work long term.

I know what you’re thinking: “So now you’re going to try to convince us that we should be logging, testing, and eating better because we’ll live longer, won’t go blind, won’t lose limbs, etc.?” Well, you’re wrong. That philosophy is boring and over-played and I’m sick of hearing it. Aren’t you?

Instead this industry as a whole should be focusing on making your life easier because the easier your life is the more likely you will manage your diabetes better. That was our thought process when making Glucose Buddy for the iPhone. Glucose Buddy is the most popular, free diabetes management App that provides a unique service for diabetics to make their lives easier. For many Type 1s, an electronic place to store their results and view them either on the phone or through their free online member page makes their lives easier. For others, viewing TV segments from dLife TV (which Glucose Buddy will offer by the end of the year) will make their lives easier. Yet for others, education programs like the one we’ll be offering in collaboration with a large meter manufacturer will help make your life easier.

You see, the problem is that some, not all, doctor and educators use the same lecturing approach for all their patients. This may work for a few people, but for others it’s totally ineffective. Just like there are visual learners, auditory learners, and hands-on learners, there are different types of Type 1 learners, as well. But unfortunately this kind of learning and motivating techniques are not well spread enough. How do I know this? Because if someone had mastered it, no one out there would have an A1C higher than 7.0.

You might still “yes” your doctor to death and forget about his advice the moment you leave the office. Don’t feel bad, most people are like you. However, you don’t have to wait for that motivator to come to you, after all, Glucose Buddy’s ultimate goal is to include something that will in one way or another motivate all diabetics.

Advertising Diabetes Using 3.5 Senses

2009-07-27T20:28:00.005-04:00

In advertising, there's a thin line between what

1) people appreciate,
2) what they don't mind,
3) and what they hate.

Many large corporations fall into the latter two categories, while the whole "social media" craze/buzz word/addiction focuses on giving the target market something that they appreciate. Well, that sure is hard to do. And that's probably why social media experts are in high demand in the work force. Sales and marketing is usually very expensive and a social media expert can not only provide cheap ways to effectively market, but probably sell your product no matter what it is, as long as they spread the word correctly. "Selling ketchup popsicles to a woman in white gloves" comes to mind.

Recently, this trend has floated to big pharma, notoriously the last to adopt to trends. Roche had their D-Summit where they asked 15 bloggers to come in and just "talk amongst themselves" while they listened. Wow! But you've probably already read about this a million times from people who attended, so I'll focus on the iPhone's social media opportunities.

The iPhone has 3.5 Human Senses
1) Sight
2) Sound
3) Touch
3.5) Information (clearly not a human sense)

What advertising on this platform needs to do is stimulate these senses. The MORE SENSES YOU STIMULATE, THE MORE SUCCESSFUL YOUR ADVERTISEMENT.

So banners, for instance, will stimulate 1 sense. Will people click on banners? Yes. But we're talking more a numbers game here. So you need A LOT of impressions, to get a good hit. To better utilize banners you can add the third and a half sense; information. Your banners must offer good and useful information for the user in order to up their success.

More likely, you need to get people interacting using all 3.5 senses...and that's what Glucose Buddy is focusing on now. Being a free app doesn't mean we intend on drowning you in advertisements. Our goal is to share useful information with you above all else, and then stimulate your senses.

We've added a question into our Play With Our $$ Campaign that asks some feedback questions from you, to see what you'd like to see in the app and what you would be comfortable with.

iPhones, Apps, Guns, and Bullets

2009-07-20T11:21:00.005-04:00

In my most recent article in Diabetes Health, a commenter wrote:

As a former Palm OS Software developer, from 2000 to 2007, I can say NOBODY was interested in any Diabetic software that I proposed to create. I also suggested making Diabetic software for Nokia and Motorola. Again, NOBODY was interested.

I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes in 2003, and from 2003 to 2007, not even one person was interested in ANY diabetic software I would create. No ideas received from anyone, worldwide. I even offered FREE diabetic software and there were no takers.

The article here was miswritten. It is NOT what's available, as the article was written. It is what people choose to download to their phone. It's about choice and not obligation. Most diabetic are stubborn to record their readings in a paper journal. Do you think they will be inclined to record it, electronically? Especially in the day that data theft is popular among mobile phones?

Well, Anonymous could be rebutted efficiently by almost any of my consistent readers, but for you newby's I'll explain why his theory is severely flawed. Basically, Anonymous does not believe in evolution of products, something that is so objective at this point that I don't even need support an argument for that claim, but I will because i've been thinking of them all day:

The first gun was created in 500 AD in China. So let's say it's 490 AD today, and all armies fight with swords. Then Anonymous comes along and says

Anonymous: "Look guys, I created this bullet and it will be so much more effective for your fighting.

Samurai: But Anonymous, what will we do with those bullets, we have swords and surely bullets can not effectively be used with swords!

Anonymous: But I'm giving these bullets away for free! Won't you take a few!?!?

Samurai: Our weapons are not ready for these "bullets", please come back when they are.

10 years later and the gun has been created...

Anonymous writes: "Bullets!?!? Bullets will never be popular! Not only did I try to sell them 10 years ago, I even offered them for free and still no one would take them!"

I've used this as a sake of argument and the timeframes probably don't match up, but I think you get the point.

The reason that no one bought Diabetes Apps for other phones is because the platform just wasn't there. The GUN had not been created and Anonymous was trying to sell the Bullets.

The effectiveness of electronic logging

2009-07-13T15:42:00.003-04:00

Our business is creating unique solutions for diabetics on the iPhone. That includes logging, education, entertainment and interaction. We're just about finished with the logging section. Our success has been tremendous, especially considering that we've created a way for thousands of diabetics to backup and store glucose numbers in a fast and effective way. Many of our users have never stored their numbers, so we've been the catalyst they've needed.

For the non-diabetic readers, try to compare this catalyst to something more familiar to you. Perhaps, you were over-weight and have never been on a diet because the commitment to a diet, is well, not the easiest thing to do. But then at the supermarket one day you see a new low-fat candy bar that looks delicious and you say to yourself, "hey, maybe i should try it". You try the candy bar and it's good, maybe not as good as a Snickers bar, but all the while you do enjoy it, and you start thinking that you could maybe do some more healthy eating. You start buying more low-fat food, join a gym, and make sure you cut out the McDonalds all together. Well, Glucose Buddy is that low-fat candy bar.

But that's not what our ultimate goal is. Our goal is to be the ultimate non-fat, Snickers tasting, calorie burning, candy bar. And in what way can we do that?

1) Further closed loop integration

2) Better ways to get you involved

Number 2, for us, is the most difficult of all.

Mobile closed loop will come eventually because God knows big corps will make tons of money on it, which motivates tons of money to be thrown into different ideas.

But number 2 is dealing with psychology which is a much more difficult subject to master.

Is logging glucose number fun whether it's on paper, on your iPhone, or on your meter? No. Of course not. Can we make it fun? Yes, I think so. But how?

Well, let's take a step back and think of other things that are not fun:

1) Logging

2) Ordering supplies

3) Paying for supplies

4) Being put on hold after calling supplies companies.

Now, certainly these are not the only burdens of being diabetic. There's a million more. However, the above list is something that Glucose Buddy can do something about. And we think that by incentivizing to make 2 - 4 easier, number 1 will be more worth a shot. By integrating our systems with Supplies companies so that these companies can better manage when supplies should be reordered and better respond to your requests inside of GB, wouldn't you be willing to log more information?

Yes, you're correct, we're trying to get you to log more in any way possible. If you aren't ready to log to better your health, I'm sure you're willing to log to make dealing with Supplies companies easier.

Weight Loss vs Diabetes Care

2009-07-06T10:59:00.003-04:00

The NY Times article For a Frugal Dieter, Weight Loss on a Sliding Scale details how hard it is for people to A) start losing weight and B) keep that weight off. As I read more and more of the article, I started to identify some similarities between weight loss and keeping logbooks of diabetes results.

SIMILARITIES
1) Both are extremely hard to start
2) Both are extremely easy to quit
3) Both will increase your life expectancy if you stick with it
4) There are lots of ways you can spend your money on both (Books, Professionals, Classes, etc.)

And I think that just about covers the similarities.

DIFFERENCES
1) You will see physical results for Weight Loss almost immediately
2) There are thousands of places on the Internet that can offer useful weight loss advice. Probably 25 places on the Internet that can offer you useful diabetes advice.
3) You can't buy a book called South Beach Diabetes that has worked for millions.
4) (This is more for Type 1's) There are a lot of simple rules that will help with weight loss (reduce calories, exercise more). With diabetes, reducing foods eaten and exercising more results in even more analysis that needs to be performed (hypoglycemias, insulin adjustments, etc.)

This posting is dedicated to the 36%* of Glucose Buddy users who have reported that using Glucose Buddy was their first diabetes related experience. You've done more than most diabetics and your job of blood sugar control is certainly no small hurdle. There might not be a South Beach Diabetes book in your local Borders, but at least there's a free Glucose Buddy in your virtual App Store. Keep up the good work.

*According to our "Play With Our $$" Survey

Mobile Safari Apps

2009-06-29T00:45:00.004-04:00

Have you ever heard of Project Diabetes? Their idea of iPhone integration was to allow users to easily enter their logs and sync with their member website. Members can access their info in a number of ways:

Voice: There are two paths to use the Project Diabetes voice system

Skype VOIP: +990009369996077286

Direct Dial: (281) 668-4556

Widget: Project Diabetes supports a standard HTML embed and iGoogle. We will be shortly rolling multiple OpenSocial Gadget environments.

Sounds pretty good, right? Well, there's one catch. Project Diabetes is web based and does not have an App. In other words, you'll need to open up a Safari Mobile window in your iPhone. Oh, how 2007.
I'm sure the founder of Three Questions, LLC hoped that no one would mind simply opening up the safari mobile instead of the App, but clearly his wish did not come through, and I'm guessing Project Diabetes isn't doing too well.

Where's the line between what we feel is acceptable and totally unacceptable in software. There must be some studies that show that if it takes users 1, 2, or 3 clicks to get to the same spot, users will still use the product. However, if it takes 4 clicks, then the product will die. I think it's a very interesting subject, one that I'm sure some of my marketing friends could help me out with.

Here are some more examples of things that I'm sure more thought than we know went into:

How loud/high pitched those beeps are when your car is telling you to put your seatbelt on. I'm guessing lots of research was put into at what decibel will the driver find it annoying enough to obey but not too annoying that they wouldn't buy the car.

The speed at which an elevator moves depending on how many flights it is going. Too fast, people will get neauseated. Too slow, impatient. Maybe either of these factors will deter potential renters, both private and commercial, from picking that building.

Getting back to Project Diabetes, we now know that no matter how good a web based site it, it will not survive if there are apps that do the same thing...even if they do the same thing worse than the web app. Users do not want another popup, if they can avoid it. It makes them feel "icky", like they are participating in a half-ass app that needs to communicate with the outside world. If your app does have to communicate with the outside, for god's sake, don't let the users see it...unless you provide them vomit bags, as well.

In conclusion, DO NOT RATIONALIZE THAT YOUR WEB BASED PROGRAM WILL SURVIVE ON THE IPHONE. It's so easy to list X, Y, Z reasons why people will venture out of the app store to use your program or utility. Spend the extra money, hire a developer, and get it done right.

I'm not scared to make predictions...

2009-06-24T16:27:00.002-04:00

This prediction is going to sound like a broken record to my partner, Tom Xu, but Im going to announce it to the world: I now fully believe in Palm Pre's App Catalog and I think it will prosper. I've quoted Steve Jobs before: It’s not about pop culture, and it’s not about fooling people, and it’s not about convincing people that they want something they don’t. We figure out what we want. And I think we’re pretty good at having the right discipline to think through whether a lot of other people are going to want it, too. That’s what we get paid to do.

Well, I WANT A PALM PRE! I played around with it a few times at Sprint and I seriously want one. I've decided not to switch to Sprint so I'll just have to wait until the Pre comes to different carriers (which will happen in 2010).

I read this article from the Times today: App Deficit Hurts Palm In Rivalry With iPhone
Here's some notable points quoted from the article:

Palm is still working on the Pre’s software development kit, which developers use to build applications. On Friday, it said the tools would not be widely available until the end of the summer. While the company has granted hundreds of developers access to an early version of the kit, there are thousands of other eager programmers who cannot even begin writing Pre software.

Some developers who were granted early access to Palm’s new operating system said it was worth the wait. “We find it’s the easiest one to develop for,” said Christian Sepulveda, vice president for business development at Pivotal Labs. “It allows for a richer experience, like having a pop-up menu and background processing, which is helpful.”

What's the big deal people??? It took Apple a year to get this together and they had the luxury to work with a piece of software that was already very widely adopted, you might have heard of it; iTunes. Pre doesn't want to make the same mistakes that the App World (you probably haven't heard of that one) has.

Furthermore, look who you have at the helm of this whole operation: Jon friggin Rubenstein! In case you don't know his background, here's a tidbit from Wikipedia:

Steve Jobs charged Rubinstein with coming up with a portable music player on a rushed, 8-month timetable. It was Rubinstein who recognized the utility of the iPod’s key technology, the tiny, 1.8-inch hard disk drive on which music is stored; he came across it while on a routine visit to Toshiba. Engineers there had developed the drive, but were not sure how it could be used.It was Rubinstein who assembled and managed a team of hardware and software engineers to ready the product.

In summary, you have a piece of sexy hardware that's selling great, you have the creator or the IPOD as your CEO, your employees' morale has probably boosted exponentially in the last few weeks, and this is your make or break shot to save the company (meaning it's all or nothing)...that sounds like a pretty good recipe for success.

But where does this fit in for the diabetes integration!?

Well, I promise you Palm is taking note of everything Apple does. Apple's announcing to the world about their plans to to take medical devices to the next level. If Apple is doing it, then Palm will too, and they'll be able to learn from some of the mistakes that Apple has made. Also, meter manufacturers will have had the luxury to experiment with what works and doesn't work with meter integration through iPhones bluetooth capabilities and you can sure bet that certain tweaks will be made to enhance your experience.

I look forward to prospering from the situation Palm is in and the competition they are bringing to the table. You should be too...

The Perfect Storm

2009-06-20T20:45:00.007-04:00

The last 3 days we've seen a tremendous increase in downloads and web-sync signups that we can attribute to a few reasons:

1) Our feature on MedGadget.com, one of the leading online medical journals

2) TuDiabetes feature in the Indianapolis Star. iPhone Diabetes Applications is one of the featured forum discussions on the front page of TuDiabetes and as TuDiabetes traffic increased because of the article, more people read about Glucose Buddy within the forum. I also post some of my blogs from here onto TuDiabetes which I'm sure new users might have read, as well.

3) Ever growing GB Facebook community which allows us to keep users updated and in the know. It's also important for our users to see who we REALLY are, and Facebook provides a terrific platform for that.

4) Os 3.0 release There are really two parts here
a) The new OS is giving iPhoners
a reason to play with their iPhones this week, explore the App Store more and check out some apps they haven't before
b) Even though the OS 3 beta was out well before the public os 3.0, many developers did not properly check their app to make sure the transition went smoothly. For instance, Diabetes Pilot had this note on their iTunes page:

I suspect a few other competitors of Glucose Buddy have had similar difficulties, and their regular users are now looking elsewhere for their diabetes management app needs.

And clearly, new iPhone 3Gs' have contributed to new downloads, but those only really could for today and yesterday, and not the day before that.Also, the 3G's drop in price has sold very well.

To sum everything up, more people are using iPhones, playing with their iPhones, reading about Glucose Buddy, and switching from competitors to us... the Perfect Storm for user increase in Glucose Buddy.

Update July 6: Diabetes Pilot has been updated for OS 3.0

It's the intangibles that separate companies:

2009-06-18T14:28:00.003-04:00

Click the picture to see something we are EXTREMELY PROUD of. Of the 50,000 Apps on the store, I would be surprised to see such great feedback for most of them. I'm glad our users are getting the service that they expect. Thank you to all the users who have called in, offered feedback, suggestions, and given us so many words of encouragement!

GB 2.1 on App Store

2009-06-15T16:55:00.001-04:00

After weeks of waiting, Glucose Buddy 2.1 is finally released in the App Store.

A lot of fixes in this bad boy and we're still free, obviously.

Health PIA Razr

2009-06-15T15:02:00.005-04:00

So what do you think? It seems that HealthPIA has changed their marketing strategy to really gear towards parents of Diabetics. Most of the literature is explaining how much easier this will be for parents...rather than carrying around their childs meter, they can now trade in their Blackberry's and iPhones for the discontinued Motorola Razr. Hmmm.
You know what, I think parents would do it IF it's covered my insurance (I'm waiting to hear back from Health PIA regarding this), the blood glucose results are documented and show consistency, and some good PR hit the wire. My biggest question is what is the value proposition here? You're asking someone to buy an outdated cell phone, with software that probably isn't too user friendly. Also, by the size of the picture, there is still a clip on to the phone, so you're really not reducing total volume of diabetic machinery too much.
There is more bad news: you have to code the test strips, a feature that is no longer necessary in many glucose meters today. And, do you remember how often you had to take out the battery of your Razr's to reset the stalling software? This process could be more difficult with the glucose meter attachment.
On the bright side, there are 186,000 diabetics under 20 years old, in this country alone. I do believe that parents will buy this for themselves when their kids are recently diagnosed. The automatic glucose number sending features are very attractive.
From the website:
1) Test your glucose level from the GlucoPhone™,
2) Maintain up to 100 recent readings on you GlucoPhone™ unit and retrieve them anytime you want.
3) Start sending your readings to your private database record on the GlucoPhone™ portal which you can review via the Internet.
4) Print/share selected values with your doctor.

This company will be at upcoming expos and I'm looking forward to seeing some of the features they have in store for us.

A1C emergence at ADA

2009-06-09T01:07:00.003-04:00

Want to hear something ironic?

I hate giving blood. I mean HATE.
I know how important A1C tests are, so I've been a user of the Metrika A1C Now+ system for a while. If you noticed, that link brings you to the Bayer page because Bayer has recently acquired the technology.

This was definitely showcased at the Bayer booth at the ADA, and quite frankly, I think it's an amazing acquisition... I will no longer have to give blood so much, and neither will you!

But it got me thinking about trends...I bet you are going to feel the same way. Personally, I now take my A1C about once every 6 months. You could, with very little easy take your A1C every 30 days if you want. I know, I know, it's a 90 day test, but it's a proven fact that your last 30 days are weighed more heavily than 60 previous days before that. Being able to take this at home in 5 minutes I'm probably going to take them pretty often just for the heck of it.

It also got me thinking about the different options that Glucose Buddy has, and what we need to instill because of this shift. First of all, we're going to be making it easier for you to track your results and see how effective Glucose Buddy really is. Right now, you can look at different averages through different timelines, and establish your progress pretty easily, but we know you're proud of your progress and we want those decreased BGs staring you right smack in the face. Also, I believe that a lot of you are going to be taking more A1C tests now, so we're going to make sure you have a great, organized way to save that data on the page and graph it appropriately.

If you have any other comments or ideas about A1cs, shoot me an email at mtendler@glucosebuddy.com

Acquisitions for iPhone Apps - the new trend

2009-06-07T23:22:00.002-04:00

From the NY Times:

Apps Boom as Companies Seek a Place on Your Phone

By JENNA WORTHAM

Published: June 7, 2009

Developers of programs for the iPhone have already managed to make a decent living selling hundreds of thousands of copies of games from their living rooms or garages.

But now, a new way to profit from writing software for the iPhone is emerging: Sell the apps, then sell your company.

With the number of downloads through Apple’s App Store topping one billion and more than 40 million iPhones and iPod Touches sold since 2007, an increasing number of companies are seeing the mobile industry as a source of sustained revenue. Recently, IAC/InterActiveCorp, the Internet media conglomerate founded by Barry Diller, and Amazon.com, have bought app developers. Smaller companies have begun to assemble properties.

Since Apple showed that new apps sell phones, the market for apps is expanding quickly. Palm, Research in Motion, Nokia and Microsoft are all building app stores to work with phones running their operating systems. Apps can also be built for phones running Google’s Android software.

Most of the action is still in iPhone apps, which is what makes Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference this week in San Francisco of interest to developers and potential investors.

Developers will be showing new products running on Apple’s latest software, which allows users to buy subscriptions to applications and easily buy add-ons like access to higher game levels or additional city guides. The potential for added revenue should increase interest from buyers looking for acquisitions.

“There’s going to be a lot more interest in iPhone applications after the upgrade,” said Greg Yardley, a co-founder of Pinch Media, a mobile analytics firm. “We’re going to see some really neat business models emerge because of the new ability to sell virtual goods.”

The increased interest in app developers is being driven by companies seeking to build cellphone apps for their products or services. They see it as a way to reach beyond the Web for consumers. Though many apps are free, the willingness of people to pay 99 cents or more for one gives companies hope that apps may be a more reliable source of revenue than Web sites.

“Companies are asking themselves, ‘How can we get on the iPhone?’ ” said Matt Murphy, a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which maintains a $100 million fund devoted solely to investing in start-ups creating apps for the iPhone. “Instead of trying to organically create their own property, they’re looking at applications with traction and cherry-picking the ones that seem like a good fit.” (A polished, professional iPhone application can cost around $50,000 to produce.)

With an instantaneous and established presence on the iPhone platform, he said, a company could tap into a stable, loyal fan base. For a big company that is trying to go mobile, and quickly, “those few million users are almost more valuable than the property itself,” he said.

That was the approach taken by IAC, which has more than 35 Internet-based companies, including Ask.com, CollegeHumor and Evite. Last month, the company bought UrbanSpoon, a start-up based in Seattle that recommends nearby restaurants, for an undisclosed sum. It is one of the App Store’s most popular products, having been downloaded close to five million times.

“The iPhone is a big part of our mobile strategy,” said Leslie Cafferty, a spokeswoman for IAC. “It takes a lot to invest in developing an application. It was much more appealing to pick one up.”

CitySearch, another of IAC’s properties, first worked with UrbanSpoon to syndicate advertisements and reviews through the start-up’s Web site. When the iPhone application made its debut last July, it was “the icing on the cake,” said Ms. Cafferty.

For the three creators of UrbanSpoon, it was “partially opportunistic” to be bought by a larger company, said Ethan Lowry, one of the founders. “It let us think on a grander scale of the services we can offer.” And it offered stability, he said. “The security of a larger company has taken some of the financial stress out of the situation,” he said.

Amazon, with its Kindle electronic book reader, looked at phone apps as a way to expand the market for the e-books it sells. In late April, Amazon bought Stanza, a software service that allows users to browse and buy from a library of 100,000 books through a phone.

But it is not just larger companies beginning to see promise in the popularity of the phone and high demand for its programs.

Tapulous, a start-up in Palo Alto, Calif., bought a game called Tap Tap Revenge from its developer, Nate True, in July. The game, patterned after video games like Guitar Hero that challenge players to keep rhythm with popular songs, has been downloaded by one out of every three digital shoppers in the iTunes App Store, according to market research firm comScore.

“We’re very excited to connect with people at W.W.D.C. who have interesting ideas and applications in the music gaming space,” said Andrew Lacy, the chief operating officer of Tapulous.

Other companies are making a business out of acquiring raw programs to redesign, polish and release into the App Store. For example, Ngmoco, a video game start-up based in San Francisco devoted solely to publishing games for the iPhone and iPod Touch, recently bought the quirky, colorful puzzle game Rolando designed by a British developer, Simon Oliver.

“When we built our company, we decided the best model was to harness interesting developers and bring their projects to market,” said Neil Young, the chief executive at Ngmoco. Mr. Young said the company also develops games in-house, but is always reaching out to developers to see what they are working on next.

So far, their approach appears to be working: many of their games rank highly in the App Store’s most-popular lists. The company has four more games to be released in the next two months and 15 new games under development, including several sequels to Rolando.

ADA Day 1

2009-06-06T18:45:00.002-04:00

Shockingly, I've seen nothing having to do with iPhone integration whatsoever throughout the entire 7 mile blue carpet. I was most surprised that LifeScan made no mention of it in their space. Tomorrow I'll be attending an 8 am conference called "Cell Phone Diabetes Management—Needed or Nonsense? "
It is lead by Dr Steven Ponder. Based on this blog post that I found by Dr Ponder, I'm guessing he's pro cell phone management. I'm excited to hear his experiences and what he see as the future.

ADA in the Big Easy

2009-06-06T12:45:00.002-04:00

So, I flew into New Orleans this morning to get a nice dose of ADA goodness. This is my first event and I'm very excited to see breakthrough science up close and personal. In particular, I'll obviously be looking for some iPhone and mobile solutions that are out there. It would be incredible if some companies have closed loop prototypes involving mobile phones... or even the iPhone. I'll keep everyone updated as the days go on.

In other news, the Pre went on sale today and although the lines weren't as long as the iPhone's release in July of 2007, there was some pretty traffic getting the new phone. Also, the WWDC is this week so we'll see what Apple has in store for us. Needless to say, this is a week of enormous magnitude and I look forward to covering it all, and keeping you all involved, too.

One last thing...we have some people from around the country volunteering to help Glucose Buddy with some really amazing utilities that will make it much stronger, both on the Web side and the iPhone side, and I'd like to thank these people: "You're doing a tremendous service to thousands of people"

Keep it locked. Tendler, Out.

New Diabetes App - Diabetes Health News

2009-06-04T11:08:00.005-04:00

The first thing I wondered was whether this was an initiative by Diabetes Health magazine. To the best of my knowledge, it is not. Instead, it was created by a company called SplaySoft, LLC. Here's a screenshot from their website that lists some of the Apps they've created:

Not sure if that picture is clear enough, but it seems the two creators Richard and Brian have a few templates of Apps that they make, then just change the apps information and resell. For instance, they have CNN unofficial RSS app and Center for Disease Control RSS app, and about 25 univesity apps all offering the same functionality, just with different graphics.

I actually like the business model in order to make some money, however, it doesn't seem that any of their apps provide any true substance. Diabetes Health Reader is a simple RSS tool that opens up a background safari mobile browser (within the app) to display articles. If you're looking to keep up to date with some very general news feeds, you might be able to utilize this tool.

New Diabetes App - Diabetic Coach

2009-06-03T14:45:00.005-04:00

This App is made by Think Safe, Inc who make First Voice; a machine that will instruct you how to handle an emergency situation while you're waiting an "average of 8 - 10 minutes " before the response team has gotten to you.

From the website:
First Voice's top-selling and proven life saving portable EMT system includes responder supplies as well as an Emergency Instruction Device (EID). The EID is quite simply a "first aid/EMT calculator". Much like the well-known calculator has improved math accuracy from 50 years ago when we did math using our pencils and paper; First Aid care and training has been taken to a new technology-aided level of accuracy with improved results. With the simple press of a button, instant detailed American Heart Association approved instructions on what to do are immediately heard and seen by the responder or lay rescuers providing care. Simple yes/no questions guide any responder through what to do for over 30 traumatic situations including multiple injury traumas.

Personally, my favorite quote is "like the well-known calculator"

Here's two screenshots:

There's a pretty fundamental flaw with this App because their intended market is not the diabetic himself, but really a family member living with the diabetic. I don't know how many family members are searching for "Diabetes" in the App Store that will find this. Perhaps they are hoping that the actual diabetic tells the family member about the App and therefore the family member downloads it. Still there are a lot of variables in that scenario.
Perhaps, they are hoping that diabetes educators will purchase this...but that seems very unlikely with the information it provides.

With the first picture (Check to see...) I'm curious of the scenario where someone who has actually purchased the app will utilize these instructions effectively.

You can tell by the literature, functionality, the interface, and the overall design that this was put together for marketing purposes. It might serve its purpose, in that case, after all, I bet you never heard of this company or the First Voice before this blog. I sure didn't.

How much action are these mobile browsers receiving?

2009-05-28T10:22:00.002-04:00

The thing I take away the most from these stats is how willing users are to browse and interact with their iPhones AND how new smartphones that are released will make sure that their browsers are as pleasing as the iPhones/Android/Palm Pre's of the world. Therefore, exhausting large amounts of funds to make websites mobile friendly for older, "less smart" phones, while necessary for a very large "non-smartphone" demographic is like playing catchup towards the wrong demographic. Wrong demographic because these aren't the people spending the most time on the web from their phones, anyway. Instead, concentrating on making a presence in the more attractive phones via Appplications that integrate with your webpage will A) give them a reason to spend their time searching on your company's website rather than espn.com (and remember they will be searching on their phone's browser for a fixed amount of time each day, regardless) and B) give them the chance to interact with the website via their rich browser, rather than simply viewing content on older browsers and C) show forward thinking in your business strategy. In other words, recognizing trends in smartphone browser statistics, and preparing your company appropriately. Remember, it's not a game of either or, but instead of how much effort to put into which direction (Catch Up or Forward Thinking).

Android to AT&T

2009-05-27T15:02:00.004-04:00

This is from a few days ago (via engadget)

After all the talk of the explosion of Android in 2009, we have yet to see too much coming. However, this announcement (leaked) of the HTC Lancaster is superb for diabetes. As we all know, diabetes has made a huge stamp in the App Store, and its refreshing to see that other networks are starting to adopt Android and the Android Market into their lineup. Although AT&T is likely putting a number of restrictions to prohibit the sexiness of this phone in order to not upset their BFF's Apple, I'm still excited for it. Personally, if this gets decent reviews, I will probably pick it up as my next primary phone.

Also, diabetes is way behind in the android. Doing a search for "Diabetes" in the Android Market yields these two results:

Nokia Ovi app store

2009-05-26T22:42:00.007-04:00

First day for Nokia's answer to the App Store, or lack thereof.
First reports have been dismal, performance wise. I took a look around and nothing really surprising in it. Reportedly, there are about 20k applications. I took a look through for some of my favorites including Yelp and Facebook, neither of which have their own apps. I think it says a lot when some of the most successful apps on the App Store aren't early adopters of the new system. I'm guessing that Nokia has probably seen the top 20 apps on the iPhone and approached such companies like Facebook and Yelp on why they should make apps for Ovi...and clearly these companies didn't think it was that important, at least not for the big release.

There are obviously a bunch of twitter clients, further confirming the websites presence in all of these app stores.

Also, I'm pretty sure Apple has accomplished the much heralded 'noun as a verb' with the App Store. Some other examples are Xerox, Qtip, Kleenex, Vaseline, Scotch Tape, and Magic Marker.
Next time you're in your cellular network's store, see if the employees describe Blackberry, Nokia, Android as App World, Ovi, and Marketplace (respectively) or if they just say Blackberry's App Store, Nokia's App Store, and Android's App Store.

Diabetes App Review: Diabetes News Update

2009-05-26T13:34:00.002-04:00

This one looked promising, especially for bloggers, educators, doctors, and professionals who need to stay in the know on the go.
I opened the free program to discover 10 news headlines ranging from "Strict Blood Sugar Control Lowers Heat Risks in Diabetics" from May 21 to "Glucose Control Pays Long-Term Benefits for Diabetics" from May 20. Both of these were listed as from HealthDay news source.
Really? Really?

I clicked the first headline, which brought me to a page that had the following article (I'm going to retype it):

For diabetics, the key to managing their disease is keeping their blood glucose levels at a normal, low level. [End]

There were no links to the actual article.

Clearly, fellow diabetics felt the same way:

GB 2.0, now 8 days old... Cute, adorable, and look at those cheeks!

2009-05-21T20:58:00.012-04:00

Like any normal parent, sometimes I just need to brag about my kids a bit.

Glucose Buddy 2.0's response has been enormous, both in quality and quantity.

We've had 43 reviews since last week, of which an astonishing 26 of them have been for 5 stars. That is unheard of in the healthcare app market. Such a terrific response for something that's not fun to do (take your blood sugar and spend more time logging it), proves to us that our vision has been right all along. We provide easy tools for people who are ready to help themselves.
We know we're dealing with grown-ups and we're not trying to convince people they need to take care of themselves better, but they now know that when they're ready, Glucose Buddy is here for them.

I've been covering most of the customer service this week, taking calls directly at all hours of the day and night, and I must say it's been extremely fun and inspiring to me, both as a business person and a diabetic.
Almost every phone call ends with a personal testimonial of how much Glucose Buddy has helped him/her. I've had so many terrific conversations with fellow diabetics. These discussions have most certainly reinforced that all of the work I, Tom Xu and the rest of the team have put into this has already been worth it, 10 fold. And we have only just begun.... HOW FUN IS THIS!?!?!

Keep on loggin'

"Go check out some stuff"

2009-05-20T10:33:00.004-04:00

Google's View on Telemedicine

This is a very interesting bit I first watched on Mobile Health News

Google’s Open Source Program Manager Chris DiBona speaks about new advances (or lack thereof) he has seen in telemedicine. I particularly enjoy his bluntness and presentation style.
It all screams google; his dress code, profanity, in particular how it looks like he put these slides together while backstage, and how it just seems he knows what he's talking about.

There are some things that Chris says off the cuff that I really caught onto. In particular, in the first thirty second he tells us that Google said, "Just go. Have fun. Go look at some stuff." That's all it took, and now Google has an insider view of what's going on, and how they can fit in. It's entrepreneurship at its finest; recognizing where your company can fit, and then JUST IMPLEMENTING. That's the thing I love about Google, there's little time wasted on pondering and arguing and procrastination. They just throw their people out there, and tell them to find out 'stuff'. Your argument: "Well, that's easy to do when you have a zillion dollars like Google"
But I think it goes beyond that, and it says a lot about their culture and the trust they have in their employees.

When we talk about people as a company's biggest asset, Google's got it made.

I don't know, this sort of stuff entertains me, and I think his assessment is dead on. check it out

Dominance

2009-05-19T14:13:00.004-04:00

You know you're THE dominant company (Apple) when people are holding off on buying your competition's awesome phone (Pre) until they wait to see what you've got up your sleeve.

New App a Must

2009-05-18T14:22:00.003-04:00

No, I'm not just talking about Glucose Buddy 2.0 beta, I'm talking about All Things Digital

Steps:
1) Click on App Store and search for "All Things Digital"
2) Install It
3) Explore all the rich features and tech goodness
4) Put it under your pillow at night, as a reminder of all the awesome tech news you'll be waking up to the next morning
5) Tell your friends about Glucose Buddy and All Things Digital
6) Repeat Steps 3 -5

Other People's Money

2009-05-16T20:10:00.002-04:00

One of the campaigns that we're most proud of is the Play With Our $$ Survey

As with most things in life, you are usually a lot more successful if you give a little every time you take a little. This is the idea of the campaign, and we've had terrific feedback.

So far, we have donated about $300 of our own money to the JDRF and ADA just from the survey.

To find out more go to http://www.glucosebuddy.com and click on Play With Our $$ Survey on the bottom left.

Hello, World. It's me, Innovation

2009-05-13T19:31:00.003-04:00

Finally, after three weeks of nail biting, we are approved for Version 2.0.
The approval process for Health Apps is certainly longer than for iFart equivalents, but the wait was worth it.

Google vs. Apple (design philosophies)

2009-05-10T16:10:00.005-04:00

It would be easy to say that Glucose Buddy does a mixture of both. But that would just be cliche and cheesy. Of course, we listen to requests and we read every piece of feedback that we receive, but in general we have to agree with Jobs. Consumers, and we are consumers as well let's not forget, are very fickle about their wants and diswants. For every person that wants something in Glucose Buddy, there is another person that finds it unnecessary. It is MYLEstone Health's to decide on how to create the best program and decide which functions should be included so that the overall user experience does not suffer in any way shape or form.

Regarding to the NY Times article, there is definitely a difference between the two companies because one (Google) acts mainly as a search results ultility, while the other (Apple) concentrates more on the entire experience. Similarly, there are other programs out there that do more than Glucose Buddy, like Diabetes Pilot, which is a full blown utility that focuses on how many functions it can add first, and secondly on how the user interface is designed.

We prefer this quote by Jobs:

Couldn't disagree more

2009-05-07T14:00:00.005-04:00

PLEASE CLICK PICTURE ABOVE BEFORE READING BLOG

“The thing about SMS, though, is that it’s common to everyone,” Eytan said. “A lot of these iPhone services are too complicated, maybe there are some easier to use apps out there, but, overall, the key will be using SMS to push and pull health data and information.”

First of all, SMS is not common to EVERYONE. How many of your baby boomer grandparents and parents are gleefully texting away? Maybe some, certainly not mine.

What I will agree on is that a lot of the iPhone services are too complicated. Many Diabetes Apps focus on how many different options they can stuff into one app, rather than focusing on the overall user experience.

The speaker also says, "...maybe there are some easier to use apps out there, but overall the key will be using SMS"?

I challenge:
If there are easier to use apps out there why won't THEY be the key? Why does every app have to be user friendly? As long as there is one that is great and that works, that is enough...

But more to the point of how the iPhone is the PERFECT platform and how SMS, I feel, is a joke:
Users who are buying the iPhone want to download, play, browse, investigate different functionality for the phone. It's in their nature already. They are constantly being trained on how to better interact with their phone though other Apps, iTunes, Touch screen, scroll wheels, etc. The diabetes management app becomes part of their daily routine, between playing with Tap Tap Revenge and throwing on the new Coldplay CD. Regular cellular phones, on the other hand provide no Application interaction and for lack of a better word, are boring. Users don't see these phones as overall Life Utilities, they see them as a Phone and they are fine with that.

Speaker: "The most successful mHealth services will be the ones that leverage text messaging technology, Eytan explained, but developers of these services still need to work hard to make them easy to use. Just because SMS is a straightforward service, doesn’t mean applications built on top of it will be. Eytan gave up on using Google’s SMS query service because he found it too difficult to use."

For those of you who don't know, this is Google's SMS query (Google Website):
Text message your search query to 466453 ('GOOGLE' on most devices) and we'll text message back results.

I've used Google's text service, and it's worked well sometimes, but only for locations. It often funked up results to specific questions, so I understand his frustration. However, am I to believe that if Google made their text message system more consistent that it would be the future of Google results? People will still prefer to go to www.google.com in their smartphones. And most everyone will have some form of smartphone within the next 5 - 10 years. If you opt not to have a smartphone then you are VERY unlikely to be a person that is willing to engage and participate in mobile health via text message, anyway.

The first text message was sent in 1994. The first diabetes application for iPhone was made in 2008. I'm willing to go on a limb and say 50 times more people have participated in diabetes management on the iPhone compared to as a SMS service even though texting has been around for a decade longer. Clearly, the demographic is telling us something... SMS Diabetes Care never sticks.

Waiting for Apple's approval:

2009-05-07T00:45:00.003-04:00

This Will Change Everything

2009-05-02T23:13:00.003-04:00

The article linked below is from the NY Times and discusses startups creating desktop and web based utilities that are third party Facebook and Twitter software clients. In essence, you'll be able to use different programs to check Facebook messages, enter a tweet, check status updates, etc. while never having to actually go to www.facebook.com or log in at all, for that matter.

At first I thought, "Big deal, startups have been making their own AOL Instant Messenger clients like this for years and I haven't seen anything REVOLUTIONARY come out of those"
But then I slapped myself in the face and said, "WAKE UP, MATT! The personal relationship that we have with our Facebooks and Twitters is on a whole different level than AIM. Not only that, but the amount of information, friends, and OPPORTUNITIES to integrate these systems is unparrallel to anything we've seen before"

What's the first thing that came to my mind? Video.
Would you download a free desktop utility that allowed you to have streaming video with any of your Facebook friends? YES and so would 100 million other people.

And then I thought of the KILLER app: Facebook meets Skype (meets iPhone?). Oh Lord. The possibilities.

I'm a bit scared for these companies revenue streams, to be honest. Everyone is used to getting stuff for free, and unless their programs are SUPER DUPER AMAZING, I think they'll have a hard time charging more than perhaps 99 cents per user since Facebook.com and Twitter.com are both free. Remember the uproar when a facebook rumor was released that they would be charging users 99 cents per month?

On the diabetes side, this poses great opportunities for future integration, as well. Any technology that combines something that is already familiar to you (facebook twitter) with something else that is familiar to you (diabetes) is a recipe for success. Don't worry, MYLEstone Health is already on the case ;)

Tinker Away, Facebook Says

Post from Engadget

2009-05-02T20:40:00.000-04:00

NASA's new E-Nose can detect cancerous cells

I particularly like the third comment of this article.

Twitter this, Twitter that

2009-04-29T10:25:00.005-04:00

It's pretty absurd for me to predict a long term demise of Twitter. Nonetheless, I'm going to do it, especially after reading this article, brought to my attention by Manny Hernandez. Here's a copy of the article:

Twitter Users Don't Stick Around

April 28, 2009

-By Mike Shields, Mediaweek

Twitter’s audience is exploding. Now if only they could get people to stick around.

Over 60 percent of people who sign up to use the popular (and tremendously discussed) micro-blogging platform do not return to using it the following month, according to new data released by Nielsen Online. In other words, Twitter currently has just a 40 percent retention rate, up from just 30 percent in previous months--indicating an “I don’t get it factor” among new users that is reminiscent of the similarly-over hyped Second Life from a few years ago.

Nielsen found that Twitter’s unique user base doubled in March. But most newbies aren’t coming back. “People are signing up in droves,” wrote David Martin, vp, primary research, Nielsen Online in a blog posting on Tuesday (Apr. 28). “But despite the hockey-stick growth chart, Twitter faces an uphill battle in making sure these flocks of new users are enticed to return to the nest.”

Martin sees this low retention rate a long-term problem for Twitter, citing growth patterns for previous Web sensations. According to Martin, a low retention rate limits how much a site can consistently grow its audience ; by his calculation, a 40 percent retention rate results in just a 10 percent reach level. That limits how big a property can get over time, since there are a finite number of potential new users.

“A high retention rate doesn’t guarantee a massive audience, but it is a prerequisite,” he wrote. “There simply aren’t enough new users to make up for defecting ones after a certain point.”

Of course, it’s early in Twitter’s development, and the average Web user may simply need more time to understand its benefits and change their behavior . But Martin sees ominous signs. For one, previous Web calculation MySpace and Facebook had double Twitter’s retention rate at a similar growth stage, and their retention increased over time.

“Twitter has enjoyed a nice ride over the last few months, but it will not be able to sustain its meteoric rise without establishing a higher level of user loyalty,” wrote Martin. “Frankly, if Oprah can’t accomplish that, I’m not sure who can.”
Source: Mediaweek.com

I just can't get into Twitter. I won't lie, I've tried. But for a person who has permanently deleted Blackberry Messenger or BBM (perhaps the one and only thing millions of teens across the nation purchase Blackberry's for), up-to-date,second by second updates on your life is unappealing to me. Just the thought leaves a bitter Blackberryish taste in my mouth.

I believe that this blog allows me to organize thoughts for a particular sector (or at least I try to stay as much as possible within that specific sector) but twittering random thoughts has no appeal to me, either as a writer or a reader. However, where I do find twittering EXTREMELY useful is for conferences that I am not able to attend. For instance, I was able to stay up to date with the Health 2.0 conference by various twittering of the event, which was easier for me than making the 4 hour drive to Boston with one working eye.

I'm looking forward to see if twitter is some sort of fad or if it keeps up. I mean, look at the paradigm shifts:
30 years ago if you met a girl in a bar you gave her your phone number
20 years ago you would give her your pager number
10 years ago you would give her your cell number/AIM screen name
5 years ago you'd give your Email
2 Years ago you would tell her you'd PIN her (via Blackberry)
Today you would just tell her you're on Facebook (implying to 'befriend' you)
Next year, will we be telling new people to just follow you on twitter?

I sure hope not. Call me an old soul (or call me the only Tech writer who has a hint of Luddite in his blood), but I still value the human interaction with people. With all of these tools it's making it easier and easier for people to keep away from that physical interaction, instead opting for a relationship entirely behind a electronic piece of hardware that says "MacBook" in front.

Am I worried about people who have experienced the old way of electronics? NO.
Am I worried about younger generations with all the technology that pushes "stay indoors on your computer" rather than "get out there, meet people, participate?" YES.

Doctor goes to barbershops to test for diabetes

2009-04-29T01:09:00.002-04:00

This is a great piece about a man named Dr. Bill Releford who goes to barbershops across the country and tests black men for diabetes.

Very inspirational, good work!

YouTube Video

Diabetes App Review- Diabetes Diary

2009-04-27T11:30:00.016-04:00

Wasn't too excited to see this new App, by the screenshots and the information listed I saw no difference between this one and the other 10 generic diabetes Apps out there. Regardless, purchased it and played around:

Cost $1.99
The look is very clean, with the front screen having some recent activity options.

Adding Glucose and Insulin was easy enough, both located on the same page, which is nice.

The creator Chris, made a mistake by having a horizontal scroll wheel which A) starts at 0 mg/dL every time (what a waste of time) and B) is harder to maneuver than the vertical scroll wheel we've learned to love on iTunes and other Apple Apps

I was also amazed to find that there was no way to enter any Food or Exercise entries, which for me is a COMPLETE deal breaker. Too much competition out there that offers these services

The backup server also did not work for me, both webpages provided displayed "Page Load Error"s

That was enough for me and really didn't continue using it much after. In a store full of Apps, there wasn't a single differentiating factor with this App and no way to backup (that worked) was astonishing.

Techies Anti-Apple Movement

2009-04-23T15:25:00.005-04:00

I would say that techies usually lead the paradigm shift, and I'm starting to notice a big trend against Apple. Don't get me wrong, Apple will remain a huge leader in innovation and the iPhone is going NOWHERE, I just think it's worth noting. Could this sort of disdain start leaking into the other 99% of consumers? Not sure. Check out the comments in this Android article, and notice the ones that are Low Ranked (dimmed).

http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/23/t-mobile-sells-a-million-g1s-in-the-us/1#comments

(updated: Just had another look at this link and it seems that a lot of the Apple fan club has raised those Low Ranked to Neutrals 4/27)

Wish they were focusing on medical needs instead...

2009-04-23T08:01:00.006-04:00

From Selectism Blog:
The Dior Christal Mystérieuse Watch uses “a sapphire crystal mystery movement developed by the Quinting Manufacture. The movement is a collaboration of five engineers - three Swiss watchmakers, an automotive engineer and an electro technical engineer - who dedicated seven years and ten million Swiss francs into project. The mother of pearl inserts adorning the watch were developed by the Parisian Studios of Dior Avenue Montaigne “inspired by Art Deco and Cinetic Art.” Even cooler is dial facade which rotates itself once a month from it’s initial position.

What kind of results would come from a blender of these medical equivalent masterminds and 10 million swiss francs (about 8.6 million US Dollars)?

Looks like I'm writing about the right company

2009-04-22T18:18:00.009-04:00

I'm sure most, or some, have heard about Apple's results by now. similarly, AT&T is laughing all the way to the bank with their iPhone sales.

I don't want to beat a dead horse but how could I not cover this...
actually, I'm not going to cover it, I think it speaks for itself, I'm just going to include that screenshot.

Here's another screenshot of a non-profit going mobile:

Corneal abrasions

2009-04-21T16:50:00.001-04:00

Despite popular belief, taking insulin measuring sugar, typing blind into blackberry, doing business in general is a lot harder when you don't have the use of your eyes.
I hate you contacts!!
But I love you, Mandy, for hand holding me through this ordeal, literally!

Diabetes App Review - Sensei: My Diabetes Guide

2009-04-17T22:09:00.006-04:00

After a nice long car ride conversation with a good friend and diabetes guru, Robert Oringer, I've changed my blog name. Rob brought to my attention that he think diabetics and technology connoisseurs want to have a one stop shop to learn about all the new gear that's talked about on the Internet, and what actually comes out.

So, on the iPhone app, we have some new stuff to hit the App Store. Well, relatively new as in I've just heard about them in the last week or so.

Sensei: My Diabetes Guide came out with a new app. I downloaded it, obviously. Played around.
My feeling is that it's a good app, if I was A) very uninformed about my body and diabetes or B) just diagnosed. So for the rest of you, ehhh, might wanna save your 99 cents.

First page:

To Do:
Check Your Blood Glucose
Brush Your Teeth and Floss Regularly
Take Your Meds
you get the picture

I mean don't get me wrong, this could be helpful for people but it's presented in an encyclopedia format. Want to know about Living with Diabetes and Depression? Just click the button. There you will find information like "Diabetes raises your risk for serious depression. This is nothing to be ashamed of..."

Updated: I received a response from a well known iTunes Diabetes Application Reviewer whose pen name is StephenCooks:

I wrote a review on the iTunes store site yesterday on the Sensei app...unfortunately quite negative. It's reproduced below.

Matt, I've also reviewed Glucose Buddy, Islet and GCPro...and FYI after testing for a while Glucose Buddy is the only one I'm using right now. I'm only using the glucose readings because I can export them for use in creating custom graphs in Excel.

best, Stephen

the iTunes store review:

My Diabetes Guide review on iTunes store 4/17/09

So Disappointing... [one star]

I got this as soon as I heard about it...The press release I saw about it (from Humana, the parent company of Sensei, on busineswire.com) said it was developed with the Joslin Diabetes Center. They must know what they're doing, I thought.

They may know diabetes but they don't know iPhone apps.

The first clue was the typo on one of the opening screens ("How Often Should Your Check" on the Check Your Blood Glucose screen).

Next was the fact that even though the image turns in landscape mode it doesn't really switch to the wider view...you get the same view with some other stuff partially obscured.

Then there is the telltale newbie mistake: buttons you have to stab at six time to get a response.

The interface problems continue into the actual diabetes-related functions. From start-up it takes about 10 touches to record one glucose reading. TEN! That includes two scrolls to bring buttons into view. I test 4 times a day. That's 40 touches a day, 280 a week, almost 15,000 a year. It HAS to be less or I won't use it. (I'm comparing it to a paper log where I jot in the time and the BG value -- takes a second, maybe. I'd spend a little more time if it meant the info was going into a database I could use for graphing or analysis but that's not the case here -- see below. There are other iPhone apps that are faster AND store the info into an exportable database.)

It's almost impossible to get to the Blood Pressure log...the button is so close to a navigation button that it can't be cleanly hit. Then when I go to the BP log and scrolled down to the Add Event button the thing crashed, twice. When I finally got past all those obstacles I found a screen with a wheel meter and the instruction "Please select your Systolic, Diastolic value." Well, people: those are two separate values but there's only one wheelset on the screen. Ok. I put in a value and the next screen asks me the date and time...and the next screen was just totally baffling nonsense.

So where do all these values go? I couldn't find any way to export a database so they can be used to see trends, etc. The thing is full of static information about diabetes, equipment, etc., but wouldn't it be better to just have links to a site where this information can be kept up to date?

Anyway, unfortunately it's a mess -- full of interface fauxpas, screwups and errors. Obviously released after a day and a half of testing. I wish Apple would do a better job checking these things out before they let them release -- it really reflects badly on them. And hey, this is telling: the Joslin name doesn't appear anywhere in the app, and there's not a word about the product on the Joslin Diabetes Center website -- what did they do, just license their name to a developer and wash their hands of the project?

Another app I just purchased for 4.99 (along with their 35 dollars a month web portal) was Zuri brought to you by Zume Life. In all fairness, you do get the first month free, and you can cancel at any time without being billed. I'm going to save that review for when I post a video and so I have some time to redownload it without it bugging out on me.

Also, you can view our Facebook page for videos of Islet and Diabetes Log. http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Glucose-Buddy/62981842490?ref=ts

In case you're wondering, being the co-founder of Glucose Buddy, I am going to naturally favor my program because after all we built it, but in terms of reviews I'm going to be as objective as possible. My main goal is to inform other diabetics, like myself, about what is going on in this industry.

Excuses

2009-04-14T00:43:00.003-04:00

This is an old video, but a teenager on Diabeteens.com recently asked the question:

I have had diabetes for 10 years now. I was diagnosed when I was nine. I have no control now and I need help. I am not testing my sugars. I am not exercising. I am not eating right. And I am gaining weight. I know what I need to do to get healthy. What I don't know is why I can't seem to do those things. I was wondering if you would be able to help me.

I responded to her with this video. I think it is quite possibly the best commercial I've ever seen and provides a true motivator to every single one of us. If you've never used one of these excuses, you aren't human:

Excuses, Excuses

Ross Jaffe knows his ish

2009-04-10T13:20:00.004-04:00

Amy had a great interview with Ross Jaffe, founding investor in Therasense and Insulet (two companies I think I've heard of)

Check it out here:

A VC’s Take on Diabetes Innovation: Meet Ross Jaffe

The Competition

2009-04-09T13:00:00.008-04:00

You know what I realized, it's probably very difficult for people with diabetes to determine which Diabetes App (there are about 15 in iTunes now) will really fit their needs the best. In particular , I think that a simple userface that still provides robust features, most importantly the ability to be to effectively recognize trends, manipulate data, etc., are the key ingredients for a winner. I've narrowed a lot of the apps down to ones that I think are the best and decided to compare a few of the Apps to our very own Glucose Buddy Community App (to be released within the next few days) The ones I have chosen are Diabetes Log, Islet, and Diabetes Pilot. I'll be concentrating just on the backup procedures right now, how they work, what options are given etc.

I think this will provide users with some great insight so they don't have to shell out money before being informed. Look out for these video updates on our Facebook page at:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Glucose-Buddy/6298 1842490?ref=nf

Coaching on the iPhone with Video

2009-04-07T11:52:00.004-04:00

Video on the iPhone - tasting the future of coaching.

Just one day after I posted about www.qik.com, the rumor mill is spinning like crazy. People are whispering that iPhone's OS 3.0 will have video recording...where there is video recording, live video conferencing is nearby.
This would be nice for those educators. And as the number 1 diabetes app, nice for us as well.

The Future of Coaching

2009-04-06T18:24:00.004-04:00

http://qik.com/

Online video is the future for diabetes coaching. If you're a Diabetes Educator I suggest you start looking into offering this option. Places like www.fit4d.com would benefit tremendously from doing some qik work. the biggest hurdle will be cell providers like at&t quickly starting to limit the bandwidth or block certain sites, I believe. So many people will start doing this constantly that it will take a real toll on the carriers. I mean, on one hand you have sites like youtube that do something similar, but being able to broadcast video easily to your friends...that's awesome. Imagine live video on your BB or iPhone...iChat meets BBM. The paradigm will shift to who has the best recording devices on your phone, rather than just a camera.

BFFAEAETDDUP on Facebook

2009-04-02T14:26:00.011-04:00

As of last night, our Facebook group is officially uploaded. Become a Glucose Buddy fan here:
Glucose Buddy Facebook Group

We'll be posting lots of pictures about the company and the mischief we get into.
Things should get...interesting.

Mobile Marketplace

2009-03-31T15:40:00.004-04:00

The Windows Marketplace for Mobile is coming soon and I just saw a sneak peak on Engadget. It looks very similar to the App Store, and it's becoming so apparently clear that everyone in this space is starting to copy Apple word for word with what they've done. It's also becoming crystal clear that Apple has had a short, medium, and long term strategy that they implement better than anyone. It started with iTunes...getting everyone on board, and setting the stage for Apple fan boys. Then came iPod which was designed to make Apple barrels of dollars, all the while, I believe they knew the iPhone was coming. I think it's naive to think that Apple didn't recognize that iTunes was going to be the backbone of their ENTIRE business model for the next decade.
What gets me frustrated is how CEOs at other companies think they can just hop on board and grab some of overflow. It's really quite sad to see. Imagine all restaurateurs decided to stop taking chances with new, innovative food and restaurants, instead choosing to open generic restaurants right next door to the popular ones, looking to grab the patrons that get turned away because they find out there's a two hour wait. There is a place for these kinds of restaurants, but this strategy should not be pursued by the big players.
I just really hope that these companies have some sort of strategy on how they are going to start being INNOVATIVE again, instead of focusing on bottom line. Don't get me wrong, I also think that it's important to have a balance...being too innovative has proven to be counterproductive as well. Many believe that Google's "too cool for school" attitude towards a vast array of business sectors has made them lose focus on their cores and consequently that is why many corporations are a bit hesitant about getting involved in Android.
Anyway, innovation is king! Utilizing successful recipes to see what works might provide the key ingredients for a great meal, but no chef ever made the KILLER RESTAURANT copying the recipes of his competitors word for word.

See Windows video here

App World April 1

2009-03-29T22:44:00.005-04:00

Unless this is just a very bad April Fool's gag, App World, Blackberry's answer for the App Store, will be opening its doors on April 1 (according to rumors). As a user of many phones, I must admit my Blackberry still holds a place very close to my heart. E-mail capabilities are undeniable. Speed, ease of use, and straightforwardness bring me back to my corporate days, and I must admit, I just can't seem to let go of my Berry.

As you can guess, I'm very excited about the App World. MYLEstone Health as a whole is very excited about the App World, as well. We've always known that Android Market, App World, etc. were going to be coming to the masses, but when something like this opens up, I believe we'll see a similar situation that the App Store had. Granted, the iPhone's interface is much more agreeable for games, but there is an enormous market of Blackberry users who will purchase apps that make their lives easier through utility applications.

Also, this is a demographic who is obsessed with up-to-the-second communication utilities (Email, BBM) and we feel Glucose Buddy and all we have in store for the suite will fit in perfectly. In fact, as well as integration (physical with hardware, mental with Communities) and analysis (charts, graphs, foods, estimators, etc) work with iPhones, it will probably work just as well, if not better, with Blackberry's.

Oh, how I wish the Blackberry Storm worked in times like these.

Blackberry sure has come a long way:

What if I told you I could make this sized meter?

2009-03-23T23:15:00.006-04:00

Sickness and diabetes

2009-03-23T19:13:00.003-04:00

Well, it's been officially over one week that I've been feeling under the weather. Bad cough, bad sleeping habits, waking up in the middle of the night, and of course erratic and volatile glucose numbers.

If you're a diabetic you've probably experienced these crazy numbers when you are sick. It's so unenjoyable and frustrating. My carb to insulin ratios are all out of wack. It really deters me from eating anything at all, so to avoid a testing number of like 250 two hours later. Obviously, eating less is not going to help me get any better.

I've been sticking to a very low carb diet, but it seems even the proteins are messing up my BG more than usual. I remember the good ol' days when I used to drink about 4 cups of OJ when I was sick! That remedy would probably land me in the hospital today, haha.

TuDiabetes

2009-03-22T20:05:00.008-04:00

I'm an active member of TuDiabetes and I can't speak enough about how great this forum is. It's the first forum I've been apart of that actually feels like a REAL community, not just a VIRTUAL one.

A few weeks back, an active member passed away. We were alerted of her death by her daughter, who wrote a very emotional letter informing us of her mother's death. She spoke of her mother's love for TuDiabetes and how the forum truly helped her life every single day. This member loved to help others on the forum, and we all knew that.

I don't belong to hundreds of forums out there, but I would go as far as to say that I do not believe many forums give the users these kinds of life-changing experiences.

Manny Hernandez, the co-founder, (who also ranks Glucose Buddy the top iPhone Diabetes management software at Health Central's website) has done a lot of things right with this site, and here is my list of the most noteworthy features:

1) Welcome Committee- I'm apart of this team. Our goal is pretty straight forward: welcome people to the forum. It's very important for each member of the forum to feel welcome, especially when they first join. Diabetes is a very lonely disease, and the Welcome Committee makes you recognize you're not really alone.

2) User friendly and easy to navigate- there is a lot of information ranging from forum posts, to events, to live updates, blog posts, and the list goes on. However, I always have a very easy time finding most things. The search function is accurate, as well. I will say that as more information is showcased, I believe it's going to be very important to maybe cut down on the homepage clutter. I'm very used to the homepage, so it doesn't provide an issue for me but if you are visiting TuDiabetes for the very first time, the homepage might seem overwhelming.

3) New chat features- If you look at the site, the bottom Navigation bar now connects all signed in users. It's very new right now so there will have to be some updates made on it, but I think this is a terrific idea to further stress the "community" feel for TuDiabetics. One thing I would like to see on the chat features is the ability to tell which members are being active on the website or if TuDiabetes.com is running in the background of the persons computer.

I've talked to Manny already about integrating Glucose Buddy users and TuDiabetes users via the same chat room. Unfortunately, the way that they've set their chat up, that is not possible at this time, but I am confident this type of integration will happen further down the line.

LifeScan and Nanos

2009-03-20T16:30:00.006-04:00

Not to beat a dead horse, but that J and J announcement with Apple regarding medical devices with the iPhone was sure a thriller for me. People are starting to catch on to our preaching :)

From what I saw at the Apple keynote, I'm expecting OneTouch NOT to be using that bulky meter. In fact, I'd go on record to bet my life against them using that meter. To be honest, I think Johnson and Johnson is looking at this a little bit too "inside the box"...yeah it's cool to be married to the iPhone but from the demonstration they've showed us, I know Tech Diabetics are going to be looking for more than just the ability to transfer their logs to the iPhone...I mean, they could do that on their desktop if they wanted to. Marriage to the phone isn't enough to win this sector if there are other manufacturers on the prowl.

Speaking of sexy meters, I took a look at the Accu Che-k Nano yesterday and, Wow, I'm impressed. Finally a company that's starting to recognize that in a world surrounded by consumer electronic devices, looks do matter to a lot of people. Hopefully, they can carry this forward with future products, not just glucose meters.

I like where their heads are at with this meter design:

DIArect to the Man

2009-03-16T09:55:00.004-04:00

I have talked about the feedback we've been receiving from Tech Diabetics. Tom and I recognized pretty early that it would be irresponsible not to act on a lot of key issues, even if as a company we couldn't solve these problems. For example, many people write about insurance issues they've had and unfortunately MYLEstone Health can only do so much regarding this macro problems. However, we are doing something about it!
Go to our webpage to see what we're doing.

NUMBERS are a diabetic's best friend

2009-03-10T14:36:00.019-04:00

Really, it's about time we start looking into what people want and what tools we have to give it to them.
So, as our first $ Survey comes to a close, I'd like to share some of the results.
I was planning on making a short Youtube.com video going over some findings and have a running screenshot video, but I fear that some of you reading this at work might be locked out of the YouTube, so I'm going to include screenshots instead.

First, as of right now, 219 people participated. We call these participants Tech Diabetics because they are all qualified as technologically savvy, and they all have diabetes.
So 219 participants, that means 219 dollars donated to ADA and JDRF from MYLEstone Health, just like we promised.

So follow me into theses stats. I warn you, if you have no interest in diabetes or you hate statistics, leave now.

Please click on images to get a closer view.

So folks, do we need anymore evidence that Certified Diabetes Education is either A) Totally Uninteresting to Diabetics or B) Simply not offered the way that diabetics want it or C) All of the above. These CDE courses have a big hurdle in front of them, put simply, if they want to succeed they better make us more interested in what they offer.

There are plenty of Virtual Education sites out there... I think it's time for these sites to put their game faces on before they go under. I don't need to be an economist (even though I am trained in finance) to know that 99% of Americans don't have an ABUNDANCE of money right now, and when you don't have an abundance of money you're not looking to spend a single dollar on things that DO NOT INTEREST YOUR NICHE MARKET AT ALL.

Also take a look at Technology and being able to analyze your own numbers. Tech Diabetics clearly love their technology (obviously) and they want to manage themselves better.
Let's officially conclude that the reason Tech Diabetics don't want Certified Diabetes Educations is because they feel they can do it themselves. Hey, I'm a Tech Diabetic and that's always been my experience...

Let's take a look at something else that was interesting and that makes me very proud:

It seems as though our Tech Diabetics FAR exceed the national average of workout times. Good job guys and gals! Now, I know what you're thinking: That's probably skewed because there are far more Type 1 Tech Diabetics than Type 2 . Well, that's partially true, but you'd be surprised:

There were plenty of Type 2's that participated (40%), that are testing on average 3.5 times per day and are exercising regularly. Good Job!

TECH DIABETIC TYPE 1s TESTED GLUCOSE AN ASTONISHING 7.28 TIMES PER DAY

TECH DIABETIC TYPE 2s TESTED GLUCOSE AN ASTONISHING 3.32 TIMES PER DAY

Anyway, I just finished our next survey and am excited to get it out there in the public. I want to personally assure you all that for MYLEstone Health, these numbers speak volumes, and we have SO MUCH data from you that we are utilizing in our products and services.
You speak, we listen...and implement.

You say Diabetes, I say Diabetics

2009-03-09T22:13:00.004-04:00

So what is the final verdict? I had mentioned in my most recent meeting to please not take offense to the use of the word Diabetic... I got blank stares.

I found this forum dedicated strictly to the topic of whether "Diabetic" is offensive.

http://tudiabetes.com/forum/topics/583967:Topic:59924

Personally, as I told my colleagues, I don't take any offense to the word diabetic. However, the forum does bring up a good point; we call people with autism, autistic. But we certainly don't refer to people with cancer, canceric. The red misspelled underline under my typing of the word 'canceric' will verify that it's not even in the dictionary.