A presentation I gave at Georgia Tech's GVU center in February 1999 regarding the first few months of WebMD.com after we launched in the fall of 1988. My how things have changed since then. Enjoy! Reviewing an old hard drive, I found the following abstract used to promote this speech... "What does it take to get a web-based product delivered to tens of thousands of demanding professionals? What’s it like to convert a web-based development team’s thinking from the creation of a website as dynamic content to the development of a website as software? What’s it like to take a good product with live customers and transition them to a great product that is significantly revamped and enhanced? In this brown bag, the issues of re-architecting an existing website/online-service, including user interface enhancements, underlying systems architecture changes, and feature creep in a hyper-growth environment will be discussed. The presentation will center around the metaphor of websites as architectural structures, building on the presenter’s experience in the world of architecture and CAD. If most of the companies on the Web work at 'Internet speed', it can be said that WebMD works at 'hospital triage speed'. Come hear how the team at WebMD redefining the concept of a vertical niche portal on the ‘net; as if their lives depend on it."

1. Building the Doctor’s Virtual Practice on the Web

3. Mission, Marketing and Growth

4. Mission: The Web’s Premium Destination for Healthcare communications and information services.

6. Growth in Consumer Research and Communications $1.0 billion $2.0 billion Healthcare Market Research Pharma Consumer Advertising 1997 2001 (projected) Actual Spending $4.0 billion $3.0 billion

7. WebMD partners with Industry leaders

8. WebMD is consolidating healthcare internet companies that bring best of breed products or services to the network

11. Our Value Proposition

26. WebMD Consumer Site: The Most Effective “Direct To Consumer” Communications Proprietary Content With Personalization Community Through Profiling and Personalization General Health and Wellness content

28. WebMD Consumer Site: Consumer Medical News

30. WebMD Consumer Site: Direct Reports

32. WebMD Consumer Site: Communities

40. Consumer Site Distribution Physicians/Hospital Portals

41. Building the Website

49. Original Development Process

50. Current Development Process Roles and Responsibilities Product Manager Development Manager Product Designer Customer Development Online Services Business Development Product Marketing Product Management Professional Consumer

56. Home Page Design “Original” Page

59. Home Page Design First Redesign Early Concept

61. Home Page Design Second Redesign Working Concept Agency Concept

63. Home Page Design Third Redesign Quick Fix Concept

65. WebMD Site Statistics Usage Reston, VA Palo Alto, CA Fairfax, VA Atlanta, GA Virginia California New York Georgia

66. WebMD Site Statistics Usage 4,384 User Sessions ~ America Online 471 User Sessions ~ UUNET Technologies <250 User Sessions ~ Mindspring, ATT, Bellsouth

67. WebMD Site Statistics Search Engines Webmd ~ 56% (150 times) www.webmd.com ~ 11% (29 times) webmd.com ~ 7% (19 times) online ~ 1% (3 times) 86 ~ AltaVista 43 ~ Excite 37 ~ AOL Netfind 25 ~ Lycos <8 ~ Hotbot, GoTo, Snap

68. WebMD Site Statistics Browsers and Versions Used 56% of all Hits 7,890 User Sessions 65% User Sessions using 4.x 1.5% using 5.x 40% of all Hits 2,718 User Sessions 77% User Sessions using 4.x