Foodzy. Recipe for success?
Jinfo Blog

By Jan Knight

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What do you get when a start-up company takes a pinch of data and a dash of social media, combines the two and markets their application to people who want to lose weight or just eat healthily? Foodzy! Foodzy is a new online application that just this week became available to the public after being in private beta test mode since April. An Amsterdam start-up company has created this international product and aims to have 30,000 users by the end of 2011.

The application basically allows a person to track what’s being eaten and the calories consumed. This alone isn’t new of course and much larger established companies like WeightWatchers have been successful with a similar premise. The differentiators for Foodzy are the social network aspects and the fact that the database of food items is crowdsourced. People can see what others in their network are eating, aiding in accountability and peer pressure one assumes, and they can also add their own food items.

The international aspect is interesting. When a person travels from one country to another they are able to access data from pre-loaded food items common in that country. If something isn’t listed, a person can also upload the information.

Users can sign up for free for a limited time then, for a small fee per year, they can get full access to their data, charts and diet planning. Like any other “tracking” tool only those people willing to spend time entering data will probably enjoy using this but given how partial people are to sharing personal data with friends, that aspect might be key to its success.

Oh, and by the way, did I mention that they want to make this more fun than the usual tracking of calories. The website while fun to look at is a bit hard to navigate currently, but not only can you compete against friends, but you also receive “badges” as rewards for healthy eating. Every product is assigned a certain number of “bits” based on calories and you receive more badges for fresh fruit and vegetables for example than you might for other foods. If you fall off the wagon and drink too much alcohol, it’s also possible to be awarded a Hangover badge.  On your birthday you’re allowed to splurge and get a Birthday badge for eating cake.

Soon there will be a mobile presence making it even easier to enter your information while "on the go". TechCrunch reported in April in Foodzy brings gamication to the dinner table that the long term plans for Foodzy also include launching an API for easy integration with other online networks and applications.

Ok, dinner’s ready – let’s eat, type and get healthy!

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