Facebook considering move into healthcare, claims report

But do long-suffering users want more, or less, from Facebook?

Facebook is exploring moves into the healthcare market, according to a Reuters report.

The social network is said to be considering the use of its platform to host support communities for sufferers of specific ailments, alongside preventative care applications.

Facebook reportedly believes that such a move would increase engagement with its social platform, which is facing increased competition from brand-savvy rivals, such as Ello.

Perhaps Facebook should take a leaf out of medicine's book by adopting a more holistic approach to user care, rather than simply prescribing them more and more social 'pills'.

Reuters has based its report on three anonymous sources who claim that Facebook has been holding meetings with medical experts and entrepreneurs, and is setting up an R&D unit.

Computing says

Health-specific platforms, such as PatientsLikeMe, represent a market that Facebook feels it should be part of. But whether users would feel comfortable with an "official" Facebook health focus – as opposed to simply using the platform to host informal conversations of their own – remains to be seen.

Among the criticisms levelled at the network in recent months, by Ello and others, are its increasingly intrusive nature and cluttered design, along with the extent to which it gathers data and experiments with users' behaviour by manipulating news feeds.

Privacy fears, intrusion, trust and the risk of being overwhelmed by medical advertising would rapidly become the key issues for many of its users, rather than the increased engagement that Facebook desires.

The rise in negative chatter about Facebook suggests a groundswell of opinion that Facebook should get out of the way of its users more, and that its attempts to micro-manage them, in effect, are becoming counter-productive.

In 2014, no company is too big to fail.

From its own perspective, however, Facebook would be foolish not to explore what it could bring to the market. Perhaps it should take a leaf out of medicine's book by adopting a more holistic approach to user care, rather than simply prescribing people more and more social "pills".