Former MapQuest GM and AOL Digital City executive Tommy McGloin is now running Xoova, a 10 person company based in Santa Monica, CA. The 18 month old company provides sophisticated profiles of local doctors — and hopes to sell medical related advertising around the profiles. The profiles typically include a short bio, contact information, health plans and payment accepted; and a snapshot of a doctor’s care philosophy. Over time, quality measures, pricing of services and testimonials may be added.
We talked with McGloin and have published an extensive analysis of Xoova, formerly known as “Doctors Direct,” for Kelsey Marketplaces clients. Here are some highlights.
McGloin notes that Xoova’s focus on profiles is by design. Currently, there are 55,000 Xoova profiles, and McGloin is hopeful of having 200,000 profiles by the end of 2008 – or one of three medical practitioners in the U.S.
Besides providing differentiated content, McGloin says the profiles are “perfectly aligned” with search engine optimization and search engine marketing strategies – the primary way that people are finding the site, which hasn’t done any mainstream marketing. “If you search on “Mammogram Doctors” on Google, we come up as #5,” he says. This month, such tactics are expected to draw 400,000 unique visitors.
It is a pretty interesting idea that is powering the new company overseen by Tommy McGloin. You have to wonder how this company will expand in the next few years; the potential to penetrate and assume more market share must be amazing. four hundred thousand unique visitors is an amazing amount of people!