I have to confess that I’ve never really taken to Instagram or Pinterest as social networks.  They seems excessively full of people posting pictures of themselves for my tastes, with several million photos on the site tagged #me.  Nowhere is this more so than in the gym, with people proudly showing off the fruits of their labour.

Despite my personal taste however, it’s hard to dispute that photo sharing social networking is on the rise.  Equally hard to dispute is the rise in sports based social networking, be it the Nike+ running community or the Strava community that is so very popular amongst cyclists.

Pump.co is a new social network that aims to combine the fitness tracking capabilities of sites such as Strava, with the photo sharing capabilities of the Instagrams of the world.  In such a crowded marketplace, the site needs to offer something fundamentally different in order to stand out.

Whether it does that however is questionable.  It offers users personalized workouts that they can track using the mobile app.  This workout is generated by the app after each user provides it with their workout goals, plus any equipment they have access to train with.  They can then use the app to track their workouts, alongside things such as calories burned and weight lost.

Oh, and of course, they can show off to their buddies the progress they’re making via the photo sharing element of the social network.  The site claim that people who share photos of their progress are over five times as likely to keep up with their training than those of us who somehow manage to refrain from such narcissism.

Despite my personal cynicism, the site did manage to secure additional angel funding last year, but it remains to be seen whether the network, which launched in beta recently, will be successful, or indeed useful.  Have a look at their promo video below and see what you think.