NCBI ROFL: Who needs a doctor when you have Facebook?

It's Facebook week on NCBI ROFL! All this week we'll be featuring papers about everyone's favorite social networking site. Enjoy!Laypersons can seek help from their Facebook friends regarding medical diagnosis "INTRODUCTION: In contrast to Internet search engines, social media on the Internet such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. reach a large number of people, who are ready to help answering questions. This type of information aggregation has been dubbed "crowdsourcing" i.e. outsourcing a task to a large group of people or community (a crowd) through an open call. Our aim was to explore whether laypersons via Facebook friends could crowd source their way to a medical diagnosis based on a brief medical history, posted as a status update on Facebook. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The participants posted a brief case story on their Facebook profile and asked their "Facebook friends" to come up with possible diagnoses. RESULTS: The correct diagnosis was suggested ...