My mom has always used her diary to track her tracked her life and many other people love to do the same things but not with paper and a pen but with digital devices and the network.

We are entering SELF TRACKING era, where everybody can track their actions, movements, thoughts and their relationships. I’d like to talk about self tracking not only because it is a real digital trend but because it will probably become an integral part of the next big advertising and UX strategies.

As we talked in a previous article focused on Global User Experience, NIKE is one the most active companies in this area not only because its business (Fitness Apparel ) is probably the best example of self tracking, but because NIKE (Nike+) will be able to create the perfect link with its brand experience strategy.

Since the early 90s, companies like POLAR, leader in the fitness market, are striving to find a quick and easy way to track people’s activities, but in the past 10 years with the explosion of the internet and technologies able to measure  user behavior as well as social networking platforms such as Facebook able to track user’s thoughts and relationships, the panorama has changed completely.

Today, we have capabilities to track any user’s activities, behavior, thoughts, relationships, preferences and much more i.e. everything shared over the internet. In many cases this information is used to build interactive content, surveys, digital campaigns etc, but now I just want to analyze the market of self-tracker solutions:

DEVICE LIFE SOLUTIONS

DirectLife
One of the most interesting devices is from Philips and provides a lot of interesting functions and fully integrated web services such as  Nutrition, Exercise and Weight control. In addition, it can provide a Coach to drive you into the right direction.

FitBIT
Probably the most complete Health Tracking available now. The Tracker measures the intensity and duration of your physical activities, calories burned, steps taken, distance traveled, how long it took you to fall asleep, the number of times you woke up throughout the night and how long you were actually asleep vs just lying in bed. With a easy and friendly web application it helps you analyze and manage your data based too on a full FOOD library organized by kind of food, brands and restaurants. What’s also cool is that this solution provides Blood Glucose tracking.

GoWear
GoWear is another interesting product and application,  an ARM device able to track your activity, skin temperature, Heat Flux, when you are sweat, how long and how much you sleep, steps taken, calories burned, calories consumed and much more. The software platform is easy and sexy, the data is displayed in easy-to-understand diagram and infographic, but the cost of the Arm Device+service is not as cheap as FitBiT.

SleepTracker
More easy solutions, the Watcher Sleep Tracker provides detailed information about your sleep from REM mode to the deep sleep.

It analyze all data and produces a detailed report about it.

Withings
The first WiFi body scale. It provides a multi-user weight tracking  and uses the WiFi connection to share all information with the online platform to record a detailed log for all measurements. This WiFi scale can be full integrated with 3rd party platforms.

FITNESS PLATFORM

RunKeeper
RunKeeper uses the GPS technology  to track your fitness activity, giving you comparable results to an expensive GPS watch at a fraction of the cost. The intuitive and easy-to-use interface of the app makes it easy to track how far you went, how long it took, what your pace/speed was, how many calories you burned, and the path you traveled on a map.

miCoach
MiCoach is a Fitness Solutions (ArmDevicea+Platform) device produced by ADIDAS and it provides fitness training with coach training plan, heart tracking and burned calories estimation while everything is being synch with an online platform. The solutions is nice, since it helps you to track your activity and create your training plan.

HEALTH & TRAINER PLATFORM

DailyBurn
An incredible and complete platform with match, nutrition, workout and motivation elements. It provides a solutions to plan or/and track your nutrition and exercise program in direction of achieving your goals. The incredible range of services from web to an iPhone app including the great bar code reader able to track the calories of the food you eat, make this platform one of the best solutions on the web.

GymTechnik
A complete gym platform that organizes the training program into a great exercise/workout library and motivational content. The web tool provides detailed exercise tracking, results and workout coordination.

TrainingPeaks
A great standalone application for professional users focused on exercise and nutrition tracking and powered with a cup of incredible tools to analyze your power meters, heart rate using GPS tracking, plan program maker, coach support, community integration and mobile device app support.
The look&feel is not particular sexy but the quality of solutions is indisputable.

fitOrbit
Start living healthier with fitness guidance and support from a real personal trainer. You’ll get matched to a trainer based on your personality and goals. Your trainer will work with you to create an interactive fitness plan filled with personalized workouts and meals that easily fit into your lifestyle and schedule. Your trainer will monitor your progress, answer any questions that come up during the day, and give you motivation and feedback to help you stay on track with your fitness plan.

iBody
Want to track your jogging or bike distances and routes? iBody can do that. Need to document your blood pressure, cholesterol, weight, body fat index or the number of calories you burn? iBody can do that, too.
Runners, joggers and anyone else on the move will love the GPS based tracking module! Cyclists can even use iBody as their personal cyclometer. No more guessing, you’ll know exactly how far you’ve gone. The map view and track line make it easy to assess your route and distance.

LiveStrong
At the center of LIVESTRONG.COM is the “My Dares” feature, which helps our members achieve everyday victories, from losing a few pounds of, exercising regularly to spending more time with their family. My Dares suggests simple actions users can track to complete those objectives. It’s like your life’s “to-do” list, only with LIVESTRONG.COM ‘s community and experts to help put your plan together and act on it. Many other tools can be used in combination with My Dares, from our Daily Plate food tracker to the Symptom Checker and more.
LiveStrong is probably the most complete training and motivational platform today available.

Google Health
Google Health allows you to store and manage all of your health information in one central place. And it’s completely free. All you need to get started is a Google username and password.
Google believes that you own your medical records and should have easy access to them. The way we see it, it’s your information; why shouldn’t you control it?

• Keep your doctors up-to-date
• Stop filling out the same paperwork every time you see a new doctor
• Avoid getting the same lab tests done over and over again because your doctor cannot get copies of your latest results
• Don’t lose your medical records because of a move, change in jobs or health insurance
• Share your health information securely with a family member, caregiver, or doctor

With Google Health, you manage your health information, and you can access it anywhere, at any time.

MEASURE & FOOD TRACK

MyFoodIQ
Food IQ gives you the tools you need to manage your nutrition and health with ease. It combines a comprehensive nutritional database to track your meals along with added components to record exercise, medication, blood sugar, and weight.

GoMeals
If you have a health condition like diabetes, knowing information like calories, fats and carbs can be critical. GoMeals was developed to help you get the information you need to make better meal choices at home or on the go.

GlucoseBuddy
This iPhone app wrangles diabetes info for you, logging blood-glucose levels, food, exercise, and meds in a color-coded readout. It can also graph and export the accumulated stats.

LOCATION TRACK

Gowalla
Gowalla is a location-based social networking game created by Alamofire. Users ‘check-in’ at spots in their local vicinity, either through a dedicated mobile application or through the mobile website. As a reward users will sometimes receive items from check-ins. Items have developed to become a promotional tool for the game’s partners e.g. Incase. As of March 2010 there were approximately 150,000 active users.

FourSquare
Foursquare is a location-based social networking website, software for mobile devices, and also a game. Users “check-in” at venues using a mobile website, text messaging or a device-specific application. They are then awarded points and sometimes “badges.”

EVENT TRACK

MeetUP
Meetup.com (also called Meetup) is an online social networking portal that facilitates offline group meetings in various localities around the world. Meetup allows members to find and join groups unified by a common interest, such as politics, books, games, movies, health, pets, careers or hobbies. Users enter their ZIP code (or their city outside the United States) and the topic they want to meet about, and the website helps them arrange a place and time to meet. Topic listings are also available for users who only enter a location.

THINK TRACK

Twitter
Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read other user messages called tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author’s profile page. Tweets are publicly visible by default, however senders can restrict message delivery to their friends list. Users may subscribe to other author tweets—this is known as following and subscribers are known as followers.

HotPotato
Hot Potato connects friends and fans around live events.
We’re building tools for real-time social collaboration amongst groups who share an interest in any event or experience as it’s happening.
Whether checking in, recording your perspective, or just enjoying others contributions, it’s more fun to participate in events with Hot Potato.

RELATIONS TRACK

Facebook
Users can create profiles with photos, lists of personal interests, contact information and other personal information. Communicating with friends and other users can be done through private or public messages or a chat feature. Users can also create and join interest groups and “like pages” (formerly called “fan pages” until April 19, 2010), some of which are maintained by organizations as a means of advertising.To allay concerns about privacy, Facebook enables users to choose their own privacy settings and choose who can see what parts of their profile.

CONLUSION

In this article I wanted to only collect some of the most interesting links and ideas from the different markets that are all focused on self tracking because I believe that self tracking will be a huge business and will open many opportunities for digital advertising.

In addition to the fitness market the self tracking will be particularly interesting in automotive, consumer products, TV & Media, fashion, business services, customer care and many others.

Mirco Pasqualini
Published June 26, 2011
Category: Business Model, Interaction, Most Popular

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