Liz Scherer joins FIR host Shel Holtz for a conversation about how Virtual Reality can create greater empathy among healthcare providers toward their patients and the role communicators must play. Also in this episode:

* Messaging is poised to surpass social networks as a channel for people to connect with businesses

* TikTok’s growth has been meteoric and brands are already making their presence felt

* Media will use blockchain in a big way in 2019

* The number of Amazon Alexa skills doubled during 2018

* A new Google Snippet feature could damage your advertising results

* A coalition is proposing a nifty new label that (unless we’re missing something) is wide open to abuse

* IMAX has shut down its multi-million-dollar Virtual Reality effort

* Dan York’s Tech Report covers China’s landing of a probe on the dark side of the moon, TikTok Lite, Reuters’ plan to cut 3,200 jobs, hackers dumping data on German politicians, what to expect this week at CES, Om Malik’s take on slowing down, and Dan’s efforts to shift his social media activity to Mastodon.

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

You can find the stories from which FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog.

About Liz Scherer

Liz Scherer is a digital communications strategist specializing in health & wellness, nonprofits, regulated industry and agriculture. A pioneer in the social web healthcare movement, Liz has been involved in moving the envelope in terms of health and gender equity and is a former social media advisory board member for Health Justice CT. She is especially interested in how novel & emerging players are ultimately impacting agility marketing and in the disruption of content/communication-driven customer experiences. In addition to her extensive experience as a strategist, Liz has worked as a journalist, medical writer, copywriter and blogger and maintains active memberships in the National Association of Science Writers, the Association of Health Care Journalists and Journalism and Women’s Symposium. Currently, she is a curator of Emerging Infectious Diseases for univadis.com’s Clinical Essentials, and recently took a role to direct strategic communications for a mHealth publisher. Liz sits on the Advisory Board for the Center for Health, Media & Policy, Hunter College, NYC. In her spare time, she mentors health start-ups at GA/1776 DC and Village Capital, and is active in the D.C. Tech Community.

Links from this episode

* Here’s How Messaging Is Positioned to Dominate in 2019

* What’s Going to Be Big in Chatbots for 2019? [Infographic]

* What’s Behind the Sudden Growth of TikTok?

* Inside TikTok, the premier app for firefighters who enjoy lip-syncing to ‘Baby Shark’

* What to expect from blockchain in 2019

* The number of Alexa skills doubled in 2019

* New Feature In Google Search Could Give Publishers More Ad Headaches

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