Wellsphere is a community site for wellness that is being launched today with the goal of “Bringing together people, places and things that help you live a healthier, happier life”. A wellsphere is essentially a page where users list their goals and can then find like-minded people who are also working toward achieving similar goals. Users can also comment and give advice on the goals of other people and by doing so create a community of goal-oriented people.
This is very similar to the popular site 43 Things (the original site for goal-oriented-people), the main difference being that Wellsphere is primarily health and fitness oriented whereas 43 Things is more general in nature (want to see a ghost? so do about 300 people!)
To begin using the site, you first create a profile for yourself and then you can either create your own wellsphere (as many as you want) or subscribe to those of others if you find them similar to your individual goals. I went ahead and created a profile for myself to test the site.
As you can see from the screenshot below, after you have given them the basic information about yourself, you have to choose your goals from a select list, which while pretty comprehensive, may or may not have the specific goal you have in mind. The major goals include Eat Healthy, Lose Weight, Reduce Stress, Get Fit, Get Active, Play Sports and Complete an Endurance Event. These, of course, have sub-sections so you can be more specific (like which sport or which endurance event).
Once I had my goals in place, I showed up on the wellspheres page where I could search by Help givers or seekers. That’s me (Fitness M) below!)
The best feature of Wellspheres (and probably it’s Unique Selling Point over 43 Things) is the ability to search for, and connect with, an Activity Partner.
As you can see, you can search for partners on the basis of fields like activity type, skill level, gender, and most importantly area-proximity and then send a message to them to see if they can work with you toward achieving your (typically) common goal. This is an extremely useful feature to have since more and more studies show that people excel at fitness regimens when there is a support group involved. There is also a Local Resources section that lists resources like chiropractors, health clubs, personal trainers and yoga studios in your local area, but currently it only lists San Francisco based centers.
Finally, I wanted to make sure I mention that unlike many of the newer sites which expect you to login and then “figure things out as you go along”, Wellsphere has a comprehensive Help and FAQ section that answers most questions a first-time visitor would have making it that much more likely that the user will stay, contribute and enrich the community rather than shake his head and leave.
Go ahead and check Wellsphere out - there’s probably a health-conscious community right in your area that’s waiting just for you!
- Via TechCrunch
Technorati Tags: health, fitness, wellsphere
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Have you tried actually USING the site? I just tried. It’s a twisty maze of mixed up pages. I can’t figure it out. Seems like it’s not done yet.
It was full of bugs and fake content. It was sad that they are trying to create a community artificially. Not interesting and done much better on traineo and daily strength. Horrible site?
How is this site like 43things? And why do you think it will be successful? There’s no content on the site and there are plenty of much better fitness sites out there. A community means that there are people involved. A site with such an awful interface and no users won’t go anywhere. I appreciate your enthusiasm, but check out some other sites.
Woke up this morning to find some negative comments about Wellsphere having very few users, a not-so-easy-to-use interface and one commenter already deciding (on day one!) whether the site will be “successful” or not!
First off, I never mentioned even once that Wellsphere will be “successful” (a pretty relative term anyway). The success of any such social-driven site is of course determined by the activity of its users.
I also hope new users will agree that a site that launched a day ago will only have a few users and maybe some issues with regards to site navigation (the site is after all “alpha” - which means it’s open to the general public but work is still being done on it).
New users who really feel strongly about having additional features or suggestions should provide constructive criticism by visiting Wellsphere’s feedback section: http://forum.wellsphere.com/ rather than just complain.
At FitnessMantra my goal has always been to provide information objectively - I provide positive as well as negative comments if it is warranted (for example I only mentioned Activity Partners and their FAQ section as positives and I don’t consider lack of many users as a negative for such a new site).
I hope readers of this blog use the information provided here to research further and then make their own decisions. That is the real intent of my writing here.
-FM.
This site is horrible. I personally know the management team of this company -Ron Gutman and Dave Kashen -and these guys dont even know how to create a website, let alone open their email. They have had more than 25 people who have left the company due to poor ethics and lack of integrity by the Ron and Dave. It would be nice if there was some more due diligence done before every new company is featured on this site so that the pure junk is filtered out from promising ideas.
Disgruntled ex-employees! Ah, now all the negativity makes sense (or not).
I was wondering about the sudden spurt of negative activity in the Wellsphere comments, when I chanced upon this comment in the original TechCrunch article. This comment is from an ex-employee and he explains why there is no much criticism directed toward Wellsphere. Turns out many employees had to be let go recently and they are taking “revenge” by criticizing every mention of Wellsphere on the blogosphere! (Do also read the previous comments before this guy’s - the attacks are so obviously coordinated, it’s not even funny. I urge readers to always take negative comments with a grain of salt and check things out for themselves. As a policy I do not moderate comments for content unless it’s obviously spammy or profane.
Once again, my take on this episode is very clear: I just wish to make available to my readers every opportunity they can have of making a positive change in their lives. Will every tool I review be a grand “success”. Absolutely not. But I have given my readers a chance to evaluate and make decisions by (and for) themselves.
And that is more than any blogger can ever hope for.
Ummmm, for your information, the employees were not “let go.” They got so fed up and disgusted with the founders (Ron Gutman and Dave Kashen) that they resigned without notice and literally packed up their stuff (in glee, i might add) and walked out. I personally know of at least ten people who have done this across several separate instances — some en masse, others individually — and I know there are more. Ron and Dave desperately need a good team (of engineers, in particular), but they will never be able to retain them if they don’t change their ways. I’m not sure if anyone who has resigned from there has ever given any amount of notice. Maybe that will give you a sense of the sort of people the founders are. I agree with you that readers should make their own decisions about issues, but I disagree that all comments posted should solely be positive.
Dude, you are wrong. They all quit without notice. Do not fall for the spin.
Ex employees are so lame. Get over yourselves and move on with your lives. Do you really have nothing better to do than waste your time with this garbage?
It’s a sad, sad world filled with sad people….and people who can’t move on.
Losers: Maybe our information will help caution future new recruits as to what they may be getting themselves into if they join the company. I know I and many others would have been grateful for it, if for nothing more than simply getting the insider’s perspective.