Calorie Count Unveils Innovative Social Networking Platform for the Health and Wellness Community

Calorie Count (www.caloriecount.com), a free award-winning online health and wellness Web site with more than 3 million members, has launched Calorie Camp, the first interactive and educational healthy lifestyle social network with gaming elements.

Created to encourage an exchange of motivational feedback and support among its already-vibrant online community, Calorie Camp enables Calorie Count users to set and accomplish healthy living goals, publish their daily progress reports, and receive support and feedback from the Calorie Camp community. As an added motivation, users can earn points for their activities and redeem them for real-world products and services.

"At Calorie Count, we are always researching new ways to improve the experience for our members, through enhanced technology, useful tools and dependable nutritional offerings,” said Igor Lebovic, co-founder, Calorie Count. "Calorie Camp will foster a new level of engagement as each member can connect, offer support and lend advice in real-time through this innovative social network. With these new tools, Calorie Count is helping users turn the quest for healthy living – an often daunting task – into an enjoyable, interactive online experience that harnesses Calorie Count’s strong online community for feedback and support.”

Users of Calorie Camp, which is free, can participate in weekly challenges created by Calorie Count’s team of experts, which provide suggestions for health, wellness and fitness goals to complete. Members are invited to pick and choose goals from these healthy living categories such as General, Improve Health, Lifestyle Change, Improve Activity or Specific Condition.

As users accomplish certain milestones associated with their goals, they will receive virtual badges, which are automatically posted to the user’s profile page. Through a unique arrangement with Earndit, users can also earn points for their activities in Calorie Camp; those points can then be redeemed for rewards.

In addition to tracking their own progress, Calorie Camp users can engage with other members of Calorie Count’s online community through several social options, including:

• Like – with one click, users can show their support for another user’s results or comments.
• Support – subscribe to another user’s updates to follow progress. That user’s updates will appear in the friend feed.
• Give feedback – comment on another user’s progress by offering encouragement, suggestions or tips from their own experiences.
• Respond privately – Send a private message to another user. This information will not be visible to other users.

Calorie Camp is an optional social network tool provided by Calorie Count to allow users to share and support other users’ healthy living efforts. Calorie Count users may opt out of publicly sharing their information through the site’s privacy settings.

For more information about Calorie Camp, visit http://caloriecount.about.com/calcamp/join.

Follow Calorie Count on Facebook and Twitter.

About The About Group

The About Group comprises the Web sites About.com, ConsumerSearch.com and CalorieCount.com. About.com is a valuable platform for content that helps users solve the large and small needs of everyday life. ConsumerSearch.com analyzes expert and user-generated consumer product reviews and recommends the best products to purchase based on the findings. CalorieCount.com is an online resource that helps users solve the everyday challenges of losing weight and living a healthy lifestyle.

The About Group is part of The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT), a leading media company with 2010 revenues of $2.4 billion, includes The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, The Boston Globe, 15 other daily newspapers and more than 50 Web sites, including NYTimes.com, BostonGlobe.com, Boston.com and About.com. The Company's core purpose is to enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news, information and entertainment.

This press release can be downloaded from www.nytco.com.