Several new sites offer self-improvement tools. I had a look at Traineo, MyFoodDiary, PeerTrainer, Skinnyr, and FatSecret. These are all US based and since most of the US population either seems to weight too much or would like to loose weight - this is where the money is. We'll have a brief look at two of these. First up:
FatSecret. Creating your account is quick and easy: Basic personal details, then, set goal: "loose 60 pounds." The next step is to "select your diet".
Once a diet is selected, the idea is that you follow that diet to hit your goal. From MyFatsecret, which is my Home page of sorts, it was not clear to me what my next step should be. This is something
that should be improved.
I sniffed around a bit and when I decided to "weigh in" I was told that I'm in the "Detox" phase, which
is great (I need some of that); however, that should really be the
first thing I see and there should be a "next step" outlined for me.
I liked the "create my own diet" feature and I see how that makes sense to some users. The tools seemed pretty straightforward. My overall impression is that this product is not yet finished, but small improvements in the User Experience could make a big difference.
The business model seems to be revenue share through partnerships with the diet providers. That's a model that can work and it sure is refreshing to see a UI that doesn't have ads everywhere. (Thank you!)
In part II, we'll have a look at PeerTrainer.
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