Motivation!!!

People stay motivated on SparkPeople. This is shown by their countless participation in message boards. Also, today, I discovered SparkPoints, which can be earned and collected by performing tasks that help people reach their goals. Exercising, logging your food intake, reading articles, and even spinning the SparkPoints Wheel each day for logging-in would collect SparkPoints. SparkPoints follows wherever the user decides to go. Every time a user posts something, user's image and SparkPoints would show as well.

When I logged in, I pressed the button, and it spun realistically (probably used Flash), and I earned 4 points! It felt really good! The SparkPoints page also shows the SparkPoints earned by all members, and the number changes dynamically. It made me feel competitive, and I wanted to gain more points.

So I decided to do gain more points by doing more challenges. I read a dailySpark blog entry, which gave me 3 points more. I read about a custom-made energy bar called YouBar. It looked pretty disgusting and I would not like to try it. At the end of the blog, there is a button that says "Get your SparkPoints." Unless the user clicks on that button, the user won't get the points.

There are also other challenges that users could take to motivate themselves, and get points as well. Completing "Getting Started Checklist" would earn 25 points, watching an inspirational news story about SparkPeople would earn 10 points, and even posting to message boards earn 3 points.
Best of all, SparkPeople community is also motivated by each other's concerns and advice.