FiVi.com launches new Quick Entry Logging Tool for Tracking Workouts and Activities

FiVi.com just launched the latest logging application in its line of tools for active people and athletes who want to track their active lifestyle.  The Quick Entry tool is a welcome compliment to the existing FiVi Maps application (see How Create a FiVi Route and Logging an Activity on FiVi Maps) by allowing people to track their involvement in the widest range of activities.    The tool is free and does not require a profile on FiVi.com to try.  It is available on the homepage in the lower left hand corner, just click on the link “log an activity” under FiVi Quick Log Tool.  Types of activities available include but are not limited to:

• Conditioning
• Yoga
• Calesthenics
• Cardio Machines (e.g. treadmills)
• Weight / Resistance Training
• Various Classes (e.g. bootcamps)
• Dancing
• Various Sports
• Hiking
• Water Activities
• Walking

(see a Quick Visual Guide on Using Quick Entry)

The Quick Entry tool has built in logic to determine the right input parameters for each logged activity or exercise depending on the activity type.  Users can now track their workouts from start to finish in one journal entry online at fivi.com.  The Quick Entry tool can track activities that are:

(examples of tracking capabilities)

• soley a function of time (e.g. stretching)
• time and distance (running, cycling, swimming)
• reps and weight (lifting weights or doing pull ups)

select from a growing list of activity types

each type of activity has a suggested set of activities or exercises

The Quick Entry tool even has optional fields like resting period to allow users to keep track of the time interval between sets.

If an exercise is not available in the drop down menu, the user can still log the activity or exercise by just manually typing it in and selecting the most similar exercise from a suggested list.  This allows the user to track any time of physical activity and the system will still generate an estimate caloric expenditure.

if an activity or exercise is not available still log it and select the most similar

The versatility of the tool allows people of all levels to begin tracking their workouts for free with real analytics.  Some suggested users:

• body builders
• personal trainers trying to calculate optimal workouts for clients
• cross trainers (e.g. CrossFit)
• dance instructors who want to position dance classes for fitness
• yoga instructors
• athletes who want to log interval training
• runners who want to track gym workouts when they cannot workout outside
• coaches

The tool is free and does not require a profile on FiVi.com to try.  It is available on the homepage in the lower left hand corner, just click on the link “log an activity” under FiVi Quick Log Tool.  Do please keep in mind that this tool is still beta and that we would greatly appreciate feedback and also any bug reports.  We will be making a lot of enhancements in the coming months so user input is very important.

Lessons from the MySpace Job Cuts for Health and Fitness Based Social Networks

First there was Friendster, then there was MySpace, and now there is Facebook.  Ask most people to name the top most recognizable names in social networking sites and if they were born in the 70′s you’ll probably get all three, born in the 80′s you’ll get the latter two, and if they make over a certain threshold – you’ll get LinkedIn added for good measure.  Social networking is here to stay because it’s just so darn effective.  At what though – the market is still trying to figure that one out and so that’s why sustainable revenue models are so hard to come by.  Just ask MySpace about the recent news that they will laying off a third of their workforce (WSJ: MySpace Slashes Jobs As Growth Slows Down).

Live by the Ad, die by the Ad

Everyone knows that the only way to make money via social networking is through ad sales….only problem is that it’s actually really hard to pull off.  New media advertising sales (which is what online ad is considered part of) has seen record year over year growth as a percentage, but as a share of advertising spend is still dwarfed by the more tradiational forms of advertising (TV, outdoor, print, etc).  And it’s not a question of just CPM (cost per 1000 impressions in ad speak), I would argue that the experience of an online advertisement on a busy webpage is significantly different than say a commercial on a big screen TV.  It begs the question of quantity versus quality of the impression.  It is not the intent of this posting to debate the pros and cons of online versus traditional advertising, but the point is being made to say that it is still a relatively nascent field and that it is a lot harder to make money as a social networking site solely on the basis of advertising revenue.   I could not move to the next topic however, without giving credit to the real innovators in this space…those players like Facebook and Google that have really pushed the envelope and used technology to give very targeted ads as well as give users such feature rich experiences where the site seems to know your next move before you do.  And it works great on me.  I’ll be the first to admit that I click on those ads that are placed in my peripheral vision just because I’m doing a search or making a comment on a profile.

There is Social Networking and then there is Social Networking

Social networking is here and it’s only going to get better.  It comes in many forms, shapes, sizes (blogs, forums, discussion threads, and of course those juggernauts listed above) and the variants of those who would use the social networking paradigm seem to keep getting more and more creative.  But that begs the question of what is the value add in the social networking element on a given site.  Very few can pull off the advertising play (and as we’ll get to in a bit, I think it’s even harder for health and fitness sites).  The Facebooks, Friendsters, and MySpaces will get it and we’re starting to see the emergence of pay for premium service plays to compliment the advertising play but for the most part there are very few sites that will ever get the numbers these sites garner.  Over time, these tier one social networking sites will become like a ecosystems or operating systems where other more specialized services or sites will integrate or plug into these sites, case in point the Facebook applications we get invites to use.  But what about the rest of us.  Specifically, what about the health and fitness world of sites?

Health and Fitness Folks Listen Up

Just go to Google to and type fitness, run, workout, supplements, sweat, tears…and you will be blown away by the number of sites vying for the attention of eyeballs in the Health and Fitness world.  Yes, there are few (very few) heavy weights in this space who have been around for a few years and they are jumping on the social networking bandwagon as well but there are a few aspects of this space that have a big impact on implementing a social networking component to a site in this space.

1. This target audience doesn’t necessarily have all the time in the world to just sit in front of your site consuming your advertisements.  Besides the fact that you’ll have a tough time pulling them away from Facebook, most people who take health and fitness seriously – sitting in front of the computer cuts into their workouts and doesn’t burn as many calories.

2. Advertising has a negative impact on credibility.  I make a reference in my post “Culling the Fad from Reality in Personal Wellness Statistics” to a government study where the credibility of online health information is negatively correlated with advertising.  I’m not saying that you cannot have advertising but you do need to carefully think about your placement and overall audience.

3. People who are into health and fitness are increasingly becoming a very tech saavy bunch.  They email, blog, blackberry, iphone, GPS around town, and RF their heart beat onto PCs across the country.  If you are a health and fitness professional – you need to keep up with them.  Think about how you can use all of these great new mediums to actually add value to your customers.  Make it easy for them to get results.  Use the formal and informal social networks cropping up everywhere to help your clients get results.  What you shouldn’t do is use social networking to spam.  Get results for clients and the word of mouth will go a long way.

4. Mobile is important and in line with points 1 and 3 above.  It will continue to be more and more germane to consumers in this space…but if you think about it a mobile device is a small screen.  There is only so much information you can put on there and that cuts into advertising space.

So in summary, I think social networking is an incredibly powerful tool for the health and fitness world.  It can be an invaluable tool in motivating people to achieve their goals and it can provide that peer based credibility that is very hard to build (so if your site has it guard carefully).  But the traditional rules of social networking don’t all apply and this space is and will continue to become even more crowded…the best players will use the value of social networks to get results for clients not just get eyeballs for advertisers.