NetWellness was one of the country's first consumer health Web sites. It began in 1994 before the World Wide Web existed in Cincinnati, and the site's first portal was Tri-State Online, Cincinnati's Free-Net.

"Before we got cheap Internet access, Cincinnatians got service through Tri-State Online," says Roger Guard, assistant senior vice president and director of the Medical Center's Academic Information Technology and Libraries. "We had meetings to get the community involved. Tri-State Online general manager Steve Shoemaker attended one of the first ones, and he wouldn't go away," Guard says with a chuckle. "For at least four years, he was here every Friday."

The project team of UC staff and community volunteers created site features that were "really cool and leading edge," says Shoemaker, Eng. '80. "People were copying them. As a team, we advanced the state of disseminating expert health information on the Internet."

"Our philosophy was to throw it on the wall and see if it would stick," Guard adds. "People had such fun that if you talk about the good old days, they actually get a tear in their eye.

"Shoe," as Guard calls him, "was high on skills. He confronted us when he thought we were being academic. That often made people mad, which was great because he got us thinking."

Considering how much cyberspace has changed since those Free-Net days, NetWellness has evolved through several life cycles, Shoemaker says, and many have benefitted from the process. "Not only has it helped people across the country obtain valuable information," he says, "it has also introduced hundreds of doctors to another conduit to understand what the public wants. I remember doctors saying, 'We keep getting the same questions over and over again.' Well ... that's the point."

Then, as now, the site has always discouraged self-diagnosis by referring users to health-care providers. Simply put, informative education is the site's singular goal.

It succeeds well, judging from the volume of positive feedback received from online users. Of course, one child's response probably sums up the service best. "This is better than a boring old text," he wrote.

Simply put, indeed.