The Life Ledger

Fitness is a way of life.

Traineo launched in August 2006 with the mission “to create the most effective weight loss and fitness community on the web by combining the latest software technology with sound information and services from the world’s leading health and fitness experts.” It’s been getting a lot of press lately, even earning an article on Arrington’s TechCrunch. Traineo is gaining the reputation as the poster-child for Web 2.0 weight-loss, and serves as a good starting point for reviewing online fitness journals.

First, let’s get that Web 2.0 moniker out of the way - what does it mean, and what can it bring to fitness? Web 2.0 was first coined by O’Reilly, and is a vague, near-meaningless descriptor meant to define the “new web,” an advancement beyond the idea of static, text-based pages. While the Web 2.0 descriptor is difficult to nail down, it’s easier to identify features following Web 2.0 principles - social networking (enabling interaction among users), tagging / folksonomy (enabling interaction between users and the data) and websites as applications are all examples of Web 2.0 features. Traineo is spiced with Web 2.0 principles including a call-in show packaged as a podcast, user-created groups, “motivators,” forums and more. With all these new-age features, how does Traineo do with providing the basic fitness journal features?

Traineo’s developers clearly intended to create a simple, easy-to-use weight-loss service that focuses primarily on community support, secondarily on daily caloric intake and eschews more complicated notions of nutrition. Traineo members share information through forums and support through “motivators” and private messages. Traineo offers several search features for finding like-minded members, and allows members to form groups complete with their own private forums and message areas. Recording data is as simple as choosing a caloric intake and exercise for the day.

The nutshell - If you are looking for a simple, user-friendly service to log only daily caloric intake and exercise, do not care to record or analyze daily nutrition, and are seeking an active support group with several communication features, Traineo is the place for you. If, however, you are interested in learning more about your daily nutrition and the caloric and nutritional value of the particular foods you eat, you will quickly outgrow what Traineo has to offer.

Read the full review after the jump.

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