The Internet domain name .md is being marketed to the medical community as the preferred domain for health care information, and two entrepreneurs have acquired .md domain names for 300 U.S. cities and the world’s 100 largest cities to build the physician Web sites, Business First of Columbus reports.
Business partners Joe Benza and Mike Barber over the next two years plan to launch the 400 Web sites with listings of physicians and insurers in each location and a physician rating system at no cost to the users.
Benza in 2005 initiated the pilot site, called cincinnati.md, which currently has more than 300 registered physician users and receives 200,000 hits per month. Patients use the Web site to provide feedback about their physician visits, and doctors can contact the patients to follow up on a question or remedy a problem, Benza and Barber said. They also plan to add patient newsletters and online health coaches to the Web sites, Business First reports.
Benza and Barber are raising up to $5 million from a pool of investors to launch other pilot sites for Columbus and Dayton, Ohio, and an undetermined large city. Benza and Barber also think advertisers will respond to the sites. Advertising generates revenue for the Cincinnati pilot, Business First reports.
The .md domain is owned by the national government of Moldova, a country near Russia. MaxMD, the exclusive registrar for .md domain names in the U.S., in 2004 acquired the rights to sell the names in the U.S. and 90 other countries