People are now routinely using the internet to find out about health conditions and to share their own experiences with others with similar diagnoses. This is a radical change in how people experience illness. Health professionals and policy makers have much to learn from patients experience websites such as www.healthtalkonline.org about what is important to patients. This was the clear message in the Cochrane Lecture given at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine by Dr Sue Ziebland who specialises in Qualitative Health Research at Oxford University, in the UK. She gave the talk as part of the 2012 meeting of the Society for Social Medicine, after which she told Peter Goodwin about her research findings and the implications these have for health systems everywhere.