FitLink Relaunches With More Social Features

NY-based Fitlink is relaunching their fitness site today with more social features. We included Fitlink in our Web 2.0 fat off last year. FitLink has a variety of social-style features including a forum, a Google Maps mashup to find a local gym or fitness center (great for traveling), friends option, workout buddies and a news-style feed of workouts users have completed.

Using a fitness and/or weight loss site is similar to selecting a social networking service. It’s an investment and it’s important that the service offers the tools and resources you need to be effective and remain with the service. There are very high switching costs with fitness sites.

One of the features I haven’t seen before is a route guide. You can select what type of route you are looking for (e.g. running, cycling, etc.) and the desired location and FitLink will show you the best routes matching your selections.

In my initial commentary about FitLink, I wasn’t sure how they planned to monetize the site. Looks like there is now advertising on the site mostly coming from Google AdSense. I guess if the site grows they could add on paid featured listings on the locator map.

What would be interesting is to see if FitLink can send data to Facebook and other social tools. Getting feedback from friends is so critical for weight loss motivation.

There’s a lot of juicy, keyword-rich content which should index well in the search engines. This should give FitLink a boost of new visitors. At that point it’s FitLink’s job to convert those initial site visitors into trial users and then to loyal users.

My favorite site in the weight loss category continues to be Traineo. Their feature set and simple but slick layout is just easy-to-use and friendly and inviting.