Strava
Strava wants to be more social, online and off.
What’s happening: The company is revamping its activity-tracking platform, introducing new features aimed at harnessing the power of community to get more people moving.
- Clubs: Redesigning the experience for its 750K existing clubs, new features will encourage rich interaction through larger bespoke challenges and content integrations for videos (perhaps Snapchat), routes, and activities.
- 3D Mapping: Following last year’s acquisition of FATMAP, its maps technology will encourage exploration and planning through community insights, as well as an AI route generation tool.
- Sharing: Strava will allow ski resorts, parks, and other official venues to publish their own trails with detailed information and also update its map-embedding feature to allow news sites, blogs, and digital event signage to display routes.
According to chief business officer Zipporah Allen, the reimagined product vision establishes Strava as a “motivation machine,” adding:
“By reimagining how communities connect and engage, we are well positioned to transform how the digital experience of camaraderie, connection and even friendly competition translates to real life. Strava is that connection point that pulls it all together to motivate the world to be more active through community.”
Social Fitness
Strava’s new features will begin rolling out next month and continue throughout the year, with each layer positioning the company as the “center of connected health.”
And, as we recently covered in Issue No. 234: Social Fitness, our increasingly isolated world is in desperate need of solutions that encourage and reward people for gathering around IRL exercise. Plus, if that exercise is outside, our relationships might be even stronger.
Fortunately, some operators are experimenting with hybrid communities that connect online yet build relationships in person.
- TikTok-born City Girls Who Walk eclipsed 30K participants for its IRL meetups taking on loneliness.
- GORUCK launched its Sandlot app to help users find its 500+ independently-run weighted rucking clubs anywhere they are.
- Any Distance debuted Active Clubs, entry-capped digital spaces for small groups to motivate each other and form meaningful relationships around real movement.
Punchline: Digital-first in medium but not purpose, Strava and others can make a global impact by making physical gathering the end goal.
