PatientUpdates.org came from first-hand experience

Bill Watson found out firsthand about dealing with stress when a relative is in the hospital and everyone's clamoring for information.

"Our cell phones were just ringing off the hook," said Watson, executive director of Florida NPO Services Inc. in Largo. "We couldn't spend time with my brother, who was still touch and go, because we were answering all these questions."

So an idea was born: Use the Internet to post updates that friends and families could check from anywhere. The result is PatientUpdates.org, a free Web site where people can post messages about sick or injured relatives.

From San Diego, where his brother was recovering from gunshot wounds, Watson called his colleagues at Florida NPO Services, a year-old company that provides nonprofit agencies with everything from technical expertise to help writing grant proposals and giving seminars.

In about three days, they had a working model for the Web site, which is now ready to go live. To use it, people have to register by following simple online instructions and creating a user name and password. For security, Florida NPO requires a valid e-mail address to activate the account. Then users can post from anywhere they can get to the Internet.

"This is a classic Web-enablement kind of story," said Watson, who estimates the company invested about $1,000 in developing the site and will spend only about $10 a month to host it.

Watson's resume includes engineering, law and a dot-com. The rise and fall of the dot-com left him with little taste to try to sell online ads, though he's open to possible sponsorships from companies such as Hallmark or Blue Mountain Arts, an online greeting card site.

"We're tiny and we're dirt poor," Watson said. "But we get to do things like PatientUpdates."

The company has four full-time staffers, including Watson, and about a dozen freelancers. And he says they like what they're doing.

"I can go practice law if I want," Watson said. "But most of my buddies who are practicing law are blazingly miserable."

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