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Young patients at Victoria General Hospital now have access to a networking tool called Upopolis. It allows them to stay in touch with family and friends while they're undergoing treatment, but it also lets them make connections with other kids who share similar experiences.

"These benefits include being able to access medical content written specifically for the youth on Upopolisin kid friendly language, so they can better understand their illness and their diagnosis and their treatment plans," said Christina Papaevangelou, director of Kids' Health Links Foundation.

"It also enables connections with other patients who share similar diagnoses through public and private chat room discussions."

Upopolis is available to any young patient at Victoria General Hospital who is going through treatment, but they can also access the secure network when they're back at home.

"It really means a lot to them," said Papaevangelou.

"A lot of these youth have never met another person who has the same condition or diagnosis as them. Being able to meet a peer, maybe all the way across Canada, who really understands what they're going through, it helps them feel less alone, better understood."

The social network Upopolis allows sick kids to stay connected while they're in hospital. (Kids' Health Links Foundation)

It has the potential to help between 100 and 200 kids at Victoria General Hospital.

"We see patients here who have diabetes and other endocrine conditions," said Leah Dobell, manager for pediatric programs at Victoria General Hospital .

"We see patients who have cancer and blood disorders. We see patients who have cardiac conditions and we see patients with other varied complex, chronic conditions."

ButDobell thinks it will help young patients with rare conditions the most.

"Where there aren't other kids that they can be in touch with here locally, if they can find kids with the same or very similar condition on Upopolis and connect with them and share their experiences, I think it would be amazing," he said.

Access to Upopolis is restricted and monitored by adults with training in how to work with young hospital patients.

According to Dobell, that's part of what makes it unique.

"Other social media sites, like Facebook, are really all about glamorizing our lives, making us look as perfect and wonderful as possible," said Dobell.

"I think lots of kids don't want to post really personal stuff on those sites. So, to have a site where you can go on and just say, 'oh man, in the hospital again,' without having to explain why and what that means and the impact on their lives, I think it is just huge to be able to have peers who just get it."

Upopolis has been available in Canada since 2007. It's in almost every children's hospital in the country. The Victoria General Hospital is the first facility on the West Coast to join the social platform.

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A social network at Victoria General Hospital lets sick kids connect with each other - CBC.ca

Curatio, a social networking platform for patients, launched Wednesday. (Curatio Photo)

For peoplestruggling with a disease or a chronic health condition, more than just their physical health is at stake. These experiences can also take a toll on patients mental and emotionalhealth, and those can have a huge impact on how well a patient deals with their condition.

Thats somethingLynda Brown-Ganzert learned first hand when she struggled with fertility and a complicated pregnancy.

It was really isolating, and really difficult to find what I needed, she told GeekWire.

Brown-Ganzert had spent her entire career in digital media, but she found herself struggling to find resources on hercondition and connect tosocial support from other patients.

She thought to herself, woah, wait a minute. Ive worked in tech my entire life if Im not able to find this easily, what about folks that are notlike me?

In 2013, Brown-Ganzert teamed up with developer and entrepreneurAlireza Davoodi to found Curatio, a social networking platform for patients looking to connect with each other and with trusted health information. The platform officially launches today, andBrown-Ganzert said she hopes it will help patients around the world improve their physical health by improving their social and emotional health.

The platform relies on machine learning for its two main purposes: connecting users with each other to help form social support, and connecting patients with validated information about their condition. It can also be used by caregivers of patients.

Unlike other online resources, such as Facebook support groups, Curatio is also designed to protect patient privacy and ensure the content they are accessing has been validated by medical experts.

Brown-Ganzert said Curatios services fills a huge hole in the patient experience.

There are plenty of casual support groups out there, but what we havent seen is that type of proprietary matchmaking that weve built both matching people to people and people to content along with some of our initial work in AI, she said. I think its pretty exciting in terms of democratizing healthcare, so that you can come into a platform like Curatio and have the type of concierge service where we can help you find people you relate to and content, all on a private platform.

Curatios combination of privacy and personalization is its secret sauce, and studies of the platforms first users show that it has a real impact on patient health. A clinical study found that 75 percent of Curatios initial users were already showing improved health behaviors and 80 percent showed increased interest in personal health management.

Brown-Ganzert said the startup is also considering expanding the platform to be used for other communities, like those with mental health and the LGBT community. The company is also taking part in the Canadian Institutes of Health ResearchseHealth Innovations Partnership Program.

The startup has raised $1.5 million in investments so far, she said, andeven went on Dragons Den last week, receiving offers from all of the investment shows star judges.Curatio is headquartered in Vancouver, B.C., with about a dozen employees based in that office and around the world.

Curatio will be licensed to healthcare providersand is free for patients to use. It is currently available as a web application and on iOS and will launch on Android devices soon.

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Curatio aims to improve health through first-ever social network for ... - GeekWire

Parentune.com, an online social networking platform for parents, has announced that it has raised an undisclosed amount in its second round of funding from existing investor Kae Capital Management (P) Ltd.

Along with Kae Capital, the funding round also saw participationfrom Singapore-based Segnel Ventures Pte Ltd. The capital raised would be utilized to upgrade technology and launch the network in Hindi and other regional languages.

The company has not revealed any financial details of this round. Prior to this round, the start-up had secured around $500,000 in funding in 2014 from early-stage venture capital firm Kae Capital.

Talking about this investment, Nitin Pandey, founder of Parentune.com said,

We have raised this round of funding to continue building a highly personalized support (platform) for parents, with technology, data and intelligence at the centre of Parentunes scale-up.

Founded in November 2012, Parentune is an online community of parents for real-time advice and support through its website, mobile site, and app. The platform helps parents connect with like-minded parents, access useful applications, and find relevant information validated by fellow parents or experts.

The start-up claims that each parent on Parentune is verified and has real-time access to personalized content and support relevant to their childs age. It also claims more than 3 million sessions take place every month across its website, mobile website and the app. The company recently crossed the one million verified parents milestone.

Further, as per the company, the Parentune Mobile App is growing at a pace of over 50% month-on-month, mainly through parents referrals and word-of-mouth on social media. The app is spearheading the companys growth and has a user engagement of over 9-10 minutes per session.

In recent times, many startups have launched a social networking platform targeted towards parents. Last year,BabyChakra raised Series A funding to enhance its social parenting platform. Other such platforms, such as Parentlane and Tinystep, have also raised funding for expanding their technology and operations.

Email: [emailprotected]

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Parentune, social network for parents, raises funding from Kae Capital and Segnel Ventures - The Tech Portal

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Microsoft social network, Socl, is set to shut down by the end of the month.

Microsoft has announced that it will be permanently shutting down its social networking service, Socl, next week.

Socl, developed by FUSE Labs, will cease to be on March 15th, according to a blog post on the much forgotten social networking site.

The social network was launched in 2011 and was designed to be a collaboration tool as opposed to a communication platform. Initially targeted towards students, before a wider roll out, the platform allowed users to share creative content such as picture collages or short videos in a method not dissimilar from Pintrest.

In a farewell blog post the social network said: Soclhas been a wonderful outlet for creative expression, as well as aplace to enjoy a supportive community of like-minded people, sharing and learning together. In supporting you, Socls unique community of creators, we have learned invaluable lessons in what it takes to establish and maintain community as well as introduce novel new ways to make, share and collectdigital stuff welove.

When details of the service first emerged in 2011 many believed it would be a competitor to Facebook as many large tech companies, seeing the potential of facebook, began dabbling in social networking, such as Google with its Google Buzz platform in 2010.

The social networking site fell into relative obscurity after failing to gain significant traction among its audience. One of the more bizarre features of the system is that it required a Facebook login to use the service, essentially making it a Facebook add-on.

After 6 years, 5 years longer than Google Buzz, the social network will go offline permanently next week.

The blog post ended on an optimistic note that said: From the very beginning, weve been amazed by your creativity, openness, and positivity. Thank you so very much for sharing your inspirations with us.

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Anti Socl Microsoft kills social network - Computer Business Review

Like bizzaro Facebooks, Tagged and Hi5 launched in 2004 to help you meet new people instead of connecting you with friends you already know. Through social games and paid dating features, they earned a surprising amount of revenue despite being relatively unknown. Tagged bought Hi5 in 2011 before branching out into standalone social app development and renamed the parent company If(we).

But after Taggeds newer apps fell flat, its now decided to sell for $60 million in cash to MeetMe, a fellow social discovery network formerly known as myYearbook that went public in 2014. Tagged and Hi5 will remain their own distinct brands.

Tagged had originally planned to go public itself before the shift to mobile led to a precipitous drop-off of its desktop properties. If(we) managed to pull in $44 million in revenue in 2016, with mobile revenue up 56 percent in a year as it began to follow its users to smartphones. If(we) ended the year with 5.4 million monthly users. It says its still adding 18,000 users per day. The startup had raised $28.7 million, including a $15 million round in 2012 from Lighthouse Capital Partners and Comerica Bank.

Taggeds old homepage, courtesy ofAppAppeal

By joining forces with MeetMe, the combined company will have 10.6 million total monthly users, and nearly 1.1 million daily users in the U.S. MeetMe expects If(we) to add $9 million in adjusted EBITDA to its earnings over the next 12 months. MeetMe will fund the buyout with cash on hand, revenue, earnings and a $30 million loan from JP Morgan.

The markets responded favorably, sending its share price up 19 percent in after-hours trading to hover around $6.

We believe this combination provides a clear pathway to $150 million in annualized revenue with adjusted EBITDA of $50 million for our combined company, saidGeoff Cook, CEO of MeetMe.

MeetMes mobile social discovery app

Greg Tseng, Taggeds founder who stepped back from daily operations, tells TechCrunch, They did a great job with the Skout acquisition so that gave us confidence in combining. MeetMe bought the location-focused social discovery network Skout in June. He says MeetMe also plans to invest in live video.

Given that Tagged, Hi5 and MeetMe all try to turn strangers into friends or more, bringing them together rather than competing could save them money on product development and marketing.

All three companies were/are doing similar things so it makes a lot of sense to combine and the market is reacting very well to it, Tseng concludes.

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Old-school social networks Tagged and Hi5 bought by MeetMe for $60M - TechCrunch