Tweet What You Eat

The Idea
Use Twitter to lose weight by tweeting to track what you eat; get motivational messages and tips via Twitter.

Origins

A friend at my gym today had an electronic device to measure Body Mass Index (BMI), and another guy said, "I wonder if they have a cell phone app that does that." The phrase "Tweet what you eat" popped into my head.

How It Works

Freemium model: customers sign up via a website and enter basic body information (to get recommended daily calories) and their Twitter handle. Every time they tweet an item with "#calories" and a number as well as "#tweetwhatyoueat," the website adds that amount of calories to the tracking. When the number of calories is higher than recommended for the time of day or the total calorie count for the day is high, the user gets a tweet back with a message warning about intake. Premium members get the ability to enter any item and have the site automatically calculate calories as well as adding custom motivational messages, integration to update automatically other dieting sites and health sites and advanced tracking. Gold members get individualized advice from trained dietary and fitness professionals.

Resources Needed

Software programming expertise

Sustainable Competitive Advantage (If Any)

Network effect in that people see #tweetwhatyoueat and think of that site first as the source for free health tracking.