Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Twitter’s Workout Plan?




For all those seeking weight loss, Twitter could be the answer! A company named Withing has developed a WiFi scale that will not only monitor your weight, BMI and body mass, but will also share your information on Twitter..Incorporating fitness into social networking from the standpoint of motivation, could be a new key to weight loss. It's definitely an innovative addition to traditional social networking. Many people are drawn to social networking sites everyday to “check up on their friends”, but with this new technology your friends can see your weight loss or gain. Although, it sounds like the Wifi Scale will share too much of your personal information, think of how much personal information one is willing to post on Facebook, MySpace or other similar sites. In actuality, the Twitter function is not a default setting, but rather, it has to be enabled upon purchasing the scale. In this way, users can determine whether or not they want this information to be shared. If sharing is desired users can configure their scale to send their stats to "the Twitter" either daily, weekly, monthly, or each and every time they weigh in. Nike has benefitted from fitness products that report one’s personal metrics. However, will “tweeting” your weight be enough to do for dieters what Nike has done for runners?

For the bargain price of $159.00, this scale could be a revolutionary tool in the world of personal fitness and health. By making one’s weight a trackable item, it opens the door for more motivation as well as personal accountability because it will be more public. I think it would be cool to have friends across the nation working out and tweeting the results. I would personally love to try this product! Would you want your weight to be “tweeted” by your scale? Does it sound like it could be a successful venture? Or is weight the one thing that people might not disclose on the a social networking site?




4 comments:

  1. Oh, I almost forgot... for all the iPhone users out there, there's an app available to track your weight on your phone as well.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This brings accountability to a new level. For those people who are comfortable tweeting their weight I think that it is a great tool. I am interested to know how much profit Twitter is trying to make off of this product. Hopefully this will just be one of the money making ventures Twitter is planning to roll out to become profitable.

    ReplyDelete
  3. For me personally, I am not a fan. But like Laura said, it brings accountability to a new level, especially for those who would benefit from the increased support. If Twitter is not used on the WiFi scale, what other uses does it have?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Given the huge popularity of reality weight-loss shows like "The Biggest Loser," I think they may be onto something here. Although I'm not a "Tweeter" or "share all" type of gal, there is definitely a market of people needing that extra motivational push (in this case, public accountability on Twitter) to drop those few pounds. This is definitely a niche product market- a market with a relatively small demand that only a few major products can compete for.

    I'm beginning to wonder if Tweeting refrigerators are next for Twitter!

    ReplyDelete