(PaidContent.org) This story was written by David Kaplan.

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In progress: Steve Case, chairman and CEO of Revolution LLC, a co-founder of America Online, led off ContentNext's EconHealth conference (ContentNext is the parent company of paidContent) in a Q&A with our co-editor Staci D. Kramer. Although the economics of health media was the main issues Case was prepared to address, Kramer began by asking him his thoughts on AOL's $850 million purchase of social net Bebo.

-- On AOL/Bebo: The acquisition means AOL (NYSE: TWX) is moving offensively, as opposed to defensively. Case: "I think it's great the AOL is starting to take some risks and be more aggressive. It's returning to the roots of AOL, which is community. We created instant messaging under that view."

- Community is critical: The view of social media is at the heart of Revolution, having a relative succumb to cancer. "Three, four years ago, it became more necessary to give consumers a way to manage their health. This was an undeveloped space. There were some pioneers who knew something was brewing. Innovation from the fringes is what's going to drive the growth. Our goal is build a consumer goal, but the main thing was trying to aggregate the most engaged consumer audience and building that trust. The good news 10 years ago, there was a lot of health information on the internet. But it was undeveloped as an industry. Content + commerce+community - most of that equation was not developed and that's where Revolution Health comes in.

-- Traffic: Revolution Health was number 4 in unique views in January, Kramer noted. There is disagreement about the traffic, whether its better to spend money on search to build traffic or let it develop organically: Case: "The majority of our traffic is organic. We're trying to be a category-killer company and we need win commitments from new partners. For us, it was fundamentally launching a brand, launching a product. How much is willing to spend to get to number one? Case: "AOL was the first internet company to go public in 1992 and no one knew what we were talking about. But it allowed us to create more momentum and helped us fill out our product line. This is the same, it gives us the currency to encourage others to seek us out and partner with us."

-- On Microsoft: During the audience Q&A, EDventure's Esther Dyson asked: instead of buying Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), should the invest in the online consumer health sector?: Case: Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is making some moves, mostly through MSN. There's a debate within the company on how much of a bet to place on consumer health care. They're predominately an enterprise company, focused on software. I would be surprised if they didn't lean that way, towards their core competency, which is enterprise. But they seem pretty committed to getting Yahoo." more to come

By David Kaplan
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