This tweet really caught my eye today:
"So many diabetes apps but so few users" —> http://t.co/5EORETRmkw via @mHealth_news #HITsm #mHealth
— HL7 Standards (@HealthStandards) January 26, 2014
While this tweet and blog post reference diabetes apps, the same could be said for any category of mHealth apps. In fact, it might be able to apply to mHealth as a whole. There are so many apps in every category and not enough users. Is this a problem?
The answer is yes, and no. Certainly, it’s a problem for all of these app developers that they don’t have users. You could make the argument that some of them don’t need that many users, but most of them need some sort of scale to really make an impact on the world and a successful business. So, this is a problem. If they don’t get scale, many of them will close up shop and move on to other things.
While this could be a troubling thing, it can also be seen as a very good thing. There is a flood of companies and people working on creating innovative mHealth applications. The more people working on the problem, the more I like our chances of finding something truly incredible. This is a very good thing.
It will be an interesting next few years as we see the wheat separated from the chaff.
