The JAMA Network Website
Authors: Margaret A. Winker, Matt Herron, Elizabeth Jones, Howard Bauchner
Journal: JAMA (2012)

A DECADE MAY SEEM LIKE A LONG TIME, BUT ON the web, it is light-years. When JAMA and the 9 Archives Journals launched their website in 1999, smartphones had not been invented, Google was still a noun, Mark Zuckerberg was 15, and Steve Jobs was about to become CEO of Apple. While the journals transitioned to a new platform in 2001, most of them have not moved since. In the meantime, the web world evolved and in medicine “digital” became much more than part of the physical examination. On May 14, the journals not only move to a new platform, the platform will use a new leapfrog technology in ways that could not have been imagined 13 years ago. Using semantic technology, the website links content across the 10 journals of The JAMA Network, using concepts rather than key words, building relationships, and helping readers surface content of interest they otherwise may never have found. A reader seeking one article may find not only a host of other articles on the topic but also related multimedia and CME. Semantic search has been shown to improve searchers’ experience by reducing falsepositives in their search results; a reader searching a string of key words can quickly find the overarching concept in a few articles rather than combing through thousands of articles in which 1 or 2 key words appear. Furthermore, the site has all the functionality that the user has come to expect from innovative medical journals, and that functionality is presented in an intuitive interface that minimizes the click-and-wait approach to viewing an article. Shown on each article page in an easy-to-access tab format is a host of options: full text, tables, figures, references, article commenting, multimedia, related articles, related multimedia, CME . . . you’ll just have to see for yourself. The result is a user-centric experience. Multimedia brings medical research and concepts to the tablet and earbuds of the 21st-century physician. The doubling of podcasts and addition of an author video interview during the past year was in anticipation of this new platform. The platform reveals multimedia at every view, enabling rapid playback of audio, video, and interactive graphics across the platform. Podcasts and players meet the Facebook-era expectations of a younger audience while facilitating easy access for the seasoned physician trained on an analog typewriter. The voices and faces of authors span the text-heavy research to bring fresh life to new concepts and research results. The new website is another example of our journey into the future, with informative and provocative content that harnesses technology to engage readers, learners, viewers, and listeners. This is just the beginning—The JAMA Network will continue to evolve in the coming months and years, with apps and search that make the interface between what you want to know and what you find even easier to bridge. Accessing stored and bookmarked content on tablets and smartphones will provide content whenever and wherever you need it. Beyond the smartphone-enabled platform available today, a new app will enable readers to save content for reading, research, and keeping up, far from wireless access. Look for The JAMA Network app this summer. We cannot predict where digital media will be in another 13 years, but the innovative and evolving platform that now hosts The JAMA Network is sure to present medical research, reviews, and opinion in the latest, most creative ways that interface technology with medical science. It is impossible to know what 15-year-old of today will be accessing The JAMA Network content of tomorrow, but the new JAMA Network will be sure to deliver it in a way that is fast, accurate, and innovative.