The Nike Fuelband app just added the functionality to share your goal progress with a picture. This simple change in user experience was a brillant marketing decision. Although I am not sure I always want to hear about my friends working out every day, this helps hearing about nike plus in two ways.
1. With a picture, I get to tell my workout story or active day in a more visual way that I choose and am accustomed to on Facebook. We all know that images get more shares and likes then text alone, so this makes sense in how the app would evolve. I would imagine that this gives my friends a better picture of what I am doing, but also is more entertaining to see and watch then just a sentence about a workout routine I may not care about. The ability to add a picture makes this experience about the story and the person rather then just the number. And in a way, it might add more Nike+ stamps onto other lifestyle activities. What if every picture you took during the day had a fuelband stamp rather then just when you hit your goal? Its a great opportunity for nike to move more into the storytelling space.
2. This will also help serve as an earned media database for images for Nike+. Now all the nike plus stories are sharable. They can find a home on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. Images are more likely to tell the nike plus story and be told and received in a new way. Ultimately breathing new life into the nike plus ecosystem, and raise awareness of the digital brand.
2 other features I would love to see:
1. Video. Video clips would be natural extensions of this UX. And sometimes a video can really show a better story then a snapshot alone. Vine integration would be awesome. hint hint.
2. Networked apps: Lets say I was skateboarding with my buddies. What I would really want to do is to take a photo of someone else doing a trick and tagging their fuel moment to that picture. As much as we love taking photos of ourselves in this narcissistic era, sometimes you just cant while you are active. But your buddy can. Not sure how this could work, but it could be really great for content production. Perhaps the best way to implement this would be to have an API that would allow for the nike fuel points and timecodes to be exported to other medias.
Everyone is an athlete. Now we just have more ways to tell the story. Share on.
-pd
Good vs Better 