In reality, Apple and Nike have invented a system that perfectly connects two sides of my brain that had previously only given each other occasional awkward glances across the fleshy halls of my skull: the nerdy, video gaming part of me, and the part of me that actually kind-of likes (and feels good about) exercise. #
Very well written entry that sets Nike+ up as a multiplayer game of sorts (I loved the idea of running ‘stealth’).
It’s quite amazing — and somewhat disconcerting — that Nike hasn’t done more with Nike+ when you think about it. It’s an obvious choice for the social web. As a matter of fact, it’s something of a problem for Nike, I believe, that in order for me to share my running progress, I have to capture a screenshot of my run and upload it to flickr. And for me and my online friends, I have to use a forum that isn’t on Nike’s servers (in my case, also flickr).
So flickr is actually getting a good amount of free traffic, which really belongs to Nike… It’s just waiting to be exploited!
And what’s up with not providing RSS feeds and easily embedded stats for my own site? This is literally a missed marketing opportunity which is easy to get up and running and is entirely self-sustained.
This whole package is just screaming for more features. I would for instance love to see the ability for people to add their own custom training programs. This is mainly an interface problem I suppose. But with custom programs I could either do my own or simply download Nike’s own 5K program directly to my iPod.
Then my new future-like personal trainer could help me run 1 minute and walk the next, without me having to check the time continually, which is what I’m doing at the moment.
Hopefully Nike doesn’t consider Nike+ a done product.
