So the U.S. Chief Technology Officer today announced a "free mobile health service for pregnant women and new mothers."  The system, text4baby, allows moms to receive text messages about baby health on their phones. As a pediatrician I am pretty strongly committed to the health of moms and babies, but to me this program is exactly what we don't need: an million-dollar custom-built system to send text messages on one particular topic.

With this approach, anyone who hears about this system and wants to replicate it for another topic has to follow the same path:  spend millions of dollars and a year or two on custom programming.

Now, contrast that with the "Facebook approach": if someone sees a great Facebook group on baby's health (like this one on supporting breastfeeding) and want to replicate that for another topic . . . they just create another Facebook group. In five minutes. For free.

Or the "Google approach": if they hear there's a Google Group about child health and they want to make one on maternal health (or on weight reduction, or on their soccer team, or ANY other topic) . . . they just create another Google Group. In five minutes. For free.

This is a huge part of what makes the Web such an incredible tool: allowing anyone to create a content system for any content quickly and easily -- whether it's a blog, a FB group, a Yahoo group, or their own website.  Ten years ago, to build a website you needed to be a programmer, or have the money to hire a programmer. Now there are many easy ways to build your own website without programming or money (or government assistance).

Text messaging has a lot of potential, and we'll realize that potential for baby health and a million other topics when someone creates software that allows ANYONE to set up a system like text4baby in five minutes with no money.  And in fact that's what our own MIP software (being piloted in Chile), and other projects like FrontlineSMS, are trying to do.