A new report from Manhattan Research details some surprising trends in web usage by physicians. According to their data, physicians are way ahead of the curve in web usage, and much more willing to use newer technology than the average web surfer.

The statistics were informative enough to warrant mention in the Google Healthcare Advertising blog, a growing force in medical advertising on the web - especially given the Google medical records initiative.

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The surprise in the report is the number of physicians that are active participants on the web - 25,000 physicians actively maintain a blog, 200,000-300,000 use blogs, vlogs or other online content on a regular basis.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised - we've provided online content for medical professionals since 1999, but the number of physicians who use "Web 2.0" technologies is surprising - Physicians aren't just looking up information on online textbooks, they're actively exchanging opinions and knowledge.

Medscape, of course, is the currently leader in the online physician community, but other sites have been coming up. Sermo is making a case for itself, although website growth in 2007 is quite different than the exponential growth of the early sites in 1997 and on. The real question is which site - and service model - will capture the imagination and abilities of physicians in generating content, the a core-feature of any successful physician Web 2.0 enterprise.

What's your "online behavior"? Do use blogs, vlogs, RSS feeds, podcasts?

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