This article was published on January 2, 2011

Need help sticking to your New Year’s resolution? Try Fitango, a new platform to improve your lifestyle


Need help sticking to your New Year’s resolution? Try Fitango, a new platform to improve your lifestyle

If you’ve never been able to keep a New Year’s resolution or just think you’ll need a little extra help this year, why not harness the power of social media to give you a boost?

Fitango, a socially driven, lifestyle based platform launched last month to help people build and complete “Actionplans,” which can vary from life goals like learning Spanish or more short-term goals like completing your holiday shopping. The Actionplans are laid out for the user step-by-step, spread evenly across the Fitango calendar. The thought process is that users can actually complete their goals by spreading out small tasks, which is a good idea: read last year’s WSJ article, which argued that human willpower is an extremely limited mental resource.

The site certainly helps human beings realize the first step to making any change- the step of “self-awareness.” Users can choose from over 200 Actionplans, written both by accredited experts and Fitango’s staff. , 90% of which are currently free. Users can recruit friends as “Motivators” to keep them going, join a “Bubble” to discuss their plan, and share plans and progress via Facebook. The site also employs game mechanics to help you along. For example, I just signed up so I received the “Rookie” medal, which if I wanted to, I could “brag about” (share) on Facebook. Other badges include Achiever, Artsy, Athlete, BFF, Bragging, Bubbly and Cheapskate. The site itself has a clean, simple look with an easy-to-sign up Facebook log-in option.

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Fitango’s latest release includes features such as “Gifting Actionplans,” so now you can buy an Actionplan for someone else. Fitango is also providing a platform for experts to sell their own plans through the platform – like an app store for personal motivators. At the moment this would be in the form of Actionplans, but Fitango says they’re currently building the ability to sell live video-chat consultation through the site.

So what are your New Year’s resolutions? And do you think social media can help?

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