Twitter (News - Alert)'s former CEO Dick Costolo will be opening a startup company within the health and fitness industry. The company is being launched along with Fitify CEO Bryan Oki. Early speculators think that the service will be social in nature, or at least have very strong social elements built in. The biggest clues to how the new product will take shape are in the statement that this new software platform will “reimagine the path to personal fitness.”

Costolo also says that the software will be designed to offer standard health measurements, and it will motivate users to coordinate exercise with fitness professionals.

The fitness industry is a multi-billion dollar industry that is filled with products, gadgets, software, interactive elements and, of course, traditional gyms. Thousands of companies reach out to an estimated 72 million Americans that are considered clinically obese and many more that somewhere in between their ideal selves and where they are now.

Although the fitness industry is now quite large, it grew from humble beginnings. Many Americans have a desire to lose weight, and there is a tremendous amount of competition in the industry for fitness dollars. The number of commercial products that are bought and sold has grown exponentially over the years. Interestingly, despite this great success in consumer dollar spent on fitness, there is an all-time low in actual physical fitness across the board. Still, technology has tried to fill the need as integrations of fitness and technological products have emerged. We now see fitness bands, interactive apps, tracking information, intelligent gym equipment, and many more developments which have debatable value in terms of effect. It remains to be seen what the company that Costolo is founding can do to turn the tide, but given his history at Twitter, we cannot help but watch.