Fispott.com announces a new social networking platform for fitness and health professionals.

New York, NY, October 6, 2008 — As the economy worsens and layoffs increase, the health and fitness industry is sure to experience an influx of new people looking for jobs. Personal training, group health exercise instruction, dance instruction, sports specific training and other forms of exercise leadership positions will become more attractive as they offer flexible and lucrative options for making ends meet.

Fitspott, a social networking platform for health and fitness, will launch the beta version of its site in the upcoming months. The platform will organize the very large and convoluted health and fitness industry into easy to navigate sub-communities of members with similar interests, goals, skills, desires and needs. One of the primary goals of the platform is to maximize the promotional options available to the exercise leader.

“Health and Fitness professionals will have the opportunity to leverage the power of a social networking platform to maximize their exposure to the right kind of audience. In addition to utilizing the platform as a promotional tool, health and fitness professionals will be able to network with colleagues across the US and Canada to find and share new exercise techniques and technologies,” says David Gise, Co-Founder of Fitspott.

The Fitspott team is made up of a group of highly motivated and diverse entrepreneurs, athletes and creative minds. “Creating an online community of health and fitness professionals offers a great place for the fitness enthusiast to get the answers, direction, new ideas and motivation they are always looking for,” says Erin Hurry, Co-Founder of Fitspott.

Fitspott will reach out to personal training certification organizations and health clubs to help promote the Fitspott platform and its benefits. As the competition for jobs in the health and fitness industry intensifies, survival of the fittest will be more about who can best promote themselves than who has the biggest biceps.

Google announces new walking route feature for its popular map software.

It’s summer in the Northern Hemisphere, and when it’s not too hot, it feels like a waste of gorgeous weather to get behind the wheel or hop in a cab. Doubly so when you’re traveling to a city you’d love to explore, and you’re pretty sure that you could walk from your hotel to the aquarium, if only you could figure out the way. You could try to use driving directions from Google Maps, but city centers are always a maze of one-way streets and no-left-turns. These driving directions from a local hotel to the Seattle Aquarium require numerous contortions in order to obey one-way streets and find a route under the freeway, taking you out of the way of where you could go by foot:

Starting today, you can tell Google Maps that you want walking directions, and we’ll try to find you a route that’s direct, flat, and uses pedestrian pathways when we know about them. Just get directions as you normally would. If you’re going 10 km or less (some call this 6.2 miles), we’ll show you a link that you can click to get “Walking” directions:

Our walking directions for the same hotel-to-aquarium route ignore the direction of one-way streets and make use of a pedestrian-only path under the freeway. This route is more than half a mile shorter than if you were to drive:

Walking directions are a new feature for Google, and while I’m pretty excited about it, there are some rough edges that compel us to release it in “beta.” Walking directions work well for short trips in urban areas, but we don’t always know if a street has a sidewalk, or if there’s actually a special pedestrian bridge for crossing a busy street. There are still a lot of pedestrian pathways we don’t know about, and they might save you some time if you find them. We’re working on collecting new data on pedestrian pathways and on more effective ways to solicit your feedback, so that we can steadily improve this feature and get you where you need to be as efficiently as possible.

Walking is a great way to learn about a place, to get around, and to get some exercise when the weather is nice. You’ll notice shops, parks, and public art that you’ve been accustomed to zooming past, and come away feeling like you’ve really gotten the insider’s take on a neighborhood or city. Of course, don’t get too caught up in enjoying the sights! Please be careful, and be particularly attentive in high traffic areas. Just like if you were driving, follow road signs and signals along your route, and use good judgment about streets that can’t be walked (there are many useful websites containing safety tips for pedestrians).

Source: Google

A window into the world of Max Speedwell

Fitness means many different things to many different people. For some it’s a chore. It’s something they do because they have to in order to stay healthy. For others it’s an obsession, driven by vanity and physical appearance. These are the two types of fitness consumer that drive the fitness industry.

These are the people buying “Eight-Minute Abs” and wondering when the exercise pill will be get FDA approval. They’re either dragging themselves to the gym for the recommended 30-minute workout (not a second more), or they’re at the gym so much that no matter when you go, there they are. Max Speedwell is not written for either of these fitness stereotypes. Instead, it’s written for those who make fitness a balanced part of their lifestyle, where the benefits of being fit transcend health and vanity, and play a key role in one’s quality of life.

With much help from professional trainer Jamie Milnes, we’ll take a different approach to fitness that hopefully adds value in a meaningful way. If you’ve ever wanted to put your fitness to use, to give yourself goals and things to train for, that’s why we’re here. If you’re a recreational athlete who wants to find ways to keep in shape between matches or races or adventure vacations, that’s why we’re here. We’re skiers, snowboarders, kayakers, paddle boarders, cyclists, mountain bikers, rock climbers, tennis players, golfers, martial artists, surfers, swimmers, triathletes, volleyball players, equestrians, runners, parents, hikers, yoga instructors, backpackers, mountaineers, and more. Our fitness is a means to these ends.

We’re excited for the journey ahead, as we only have a vague idea of where it might lead. Our mission is to provide a window into the world of Max Speedwell, where fitness becomes more than just exercise. It becomes a path to good living.