Bleeding Toenails

Jason Levine · Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons
I would seriously love for some attention to be paid to the model that they're building out the Health Graph, though. As it stands, they won't allow any apps to pull data OUT Of the Health Graph; they openly talk about it being a vehicle for apps feeding data IN, but not OUT. That means that users have no real way to get the majority of their own data out of the Health Graph -- the only ways that you can access your own data is through the mechanisms that RunKeeper itself provides. There's CSV export, but only of a small subset of fields, and not of a TON of the relevant metadata (e.g., the GPS tracks, the heart rate data, etc. from activities) -- and no way at all to get your body metric data (weight measurements, diabetes data, etc.).

It'd be great to see some pressure on them to fix this pretty major issue.
6 · · November 21 at 4:00pm

Mads Rydahl · Aarhus, Denmark
Portability and ownership are two key issues that Runkeeper needs to address. There's a fine line between social fitness data and personal health data. And in the coming years it will be shifting and blurring. Who should be trusted to manage that data?
Wednesday at 5:02am

Mads Rydahl · Aarhus, Denmark
Would you really want all of your fitness and health data bound by the Health Graph EULA?
Keep an eye out for http://www.openhealthgraph.org/.
5 · · November 21 at 4:39pm

Jason Levine · Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons
Mads, if/when that gets running, I'm TOTALLY on board getting my Health Graph apps migrated over to it, and I'll even bring back my app that lets people export their Nike+ data over to another source. (I shut down the app because of the Health Graph TOS issues.)
November 22 at 11:22am

Mads Rydahl · Aarhus, Denmark
Jason Levine: Thanks for the support! OpenHealthGraph is in active development, and will be presenting partnerships and a complete roadmap very soon. We will be at Quantified Self Europe this coming weekend. Sign up to receive updates! http://www.openhealthgraph.org/

Be sure to check out Activities on Facebook as well. That service is built on the OpenHealthGraph backend, and syncs data from both Nike+, Endomondo, Garmin Connect, Runkeeper, and others: http://apps.facebook.com/activities/
November 22 at 3:28pm

Jason Levine · Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons
Mads Rydahl As I say below, I see *anything* involving Facebook as the actual antithesis of openness; I'm loathe to start pulling data into a Facebook app of any type.

But that said: how does the Activities app get RunKeeper data? It isn't using RunKeeper's own API, so far as I can tell...
November 22 at 8:58pm
View 3 more

Activities
Congratulations to the RK team!

Love the app, it will be interesting to see how the fitness app ecosystem responds to Facebook's new fitness semantics. The timeline mockups presented on F8 seemed to suggest that apps will have to post GPS data to Facebook if they want activities to appear 'correctly' on the timeline. It's starting to look like a fait accompli masterminded by Apple/Nike/Facebook...

We propose another angle: Take ownership of your Runkeeper/Nike+/Garmin/Endomondo data and view an aggregated feed of your friends' activities regardless of what device or app they are using:
http://apps.facebook.com/activities/
4 · · November 21 at 5:07pm

Jason Levine · Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons
No offense, "Activities" -- but putting my fitness data into Facebook feels like the polar OPPOSITE of taking ownership of the data. How on *earth* does the new Facebook Activity Feed allow me to "take ownership"? What does it enable me to do with my data beyond what the native data sources themselves let me do?
November 22 at 11:14am

Activities
Our original post above contains references to two very different products;

- The Facebook Timeline as presented by Zuckerberg at F8 hints at a future where a preferred provider setup with Nike and Apple forces smaller players (like runkeeper) into compliance with Facebook's business requirements, and our raw data ends up aggregated on Facebook servers.

- Our proposed alternative, "Activities on Facebook", is an independently developed Facebook App, which runs in an iframe on Facebook and appears visually integrated with the overall Facebook UI. But "Activities" actually resides on Amazon EC2 servers, and none of the data aggregated here is passed to Facebook. Ever.
...See More
1 · · Wednesday at 1:40am

Benjamin Young · Top Commenter · Washington, District of Columbia
Congratulations RunKeeper. I was quite excited when we got Nexercise integrated into the Health Graph. I think a lot of people fail to realize that you plan to transcend far beyond a single app. With Google Health leaving the arena, I think you guys are positioned for success. The competition is fierce in health and fitness but providing differentiated value will help you leap ahead.
2 · · November 21 at 12:08pm

Benjamin Dyer · Top Commenter · East Cowes, Isle Of Wight, United Kingdom
Nice work Runkeeper. Its a great app, I think they have the user experience spot on for runners, simple and easy to use when your on the verge of a heart attack.
1 · · November 21 at 7:52am

Lisa Carver
like for your comment Ben
November 21 at 10:25am

Chris Hulls · Works at Life360
congrats jason and team.
1 · · November 21 at 8:48am

Trevor Crowe · San Francisco, California
This has a ton of competition. Nonetheless, I find any sort of visualization of data (specifically fitness) to be a plus! I give it a 20% chance Of success.
November 21 at 9:00am

Alexander Gradow · WHU
I prefer runtastic. Much more advanced functionality and easier to use.
November 21 at 8:19am

Benjamin Young · Top Commenter · Washington, District of Columbia
This is not about the actual client anymore. RunKeeper is pivoting to take a very critical role. They actually integrate and welcome other running and fitness apps. I think their strategy is a logical progression and quite brilliant.
November 21 at 12:06pm

Alex Grodd · Somerville, Massachusetts
Congrats Jason and team. Really exciting news...
November 21 at 3:14pm

Jason Cianchette · Cumberland Foreside, Maine
Congratulations Jason!
November 21 at 2:58pm

Jonathan Jacobs · Newton, Massachusetts
Nice job. We're proud of you and the whole RK team.
November 21 at 7:47am

Walt Doyle · CEO at WHERE, Inc.
Great Work Jason and team RK!
November 21 at 2:44pm

Jim Caralis · VP, Game Platform at MocoSpace
well deserved - now go get em...
November 21 at 8:08am

Christian Beller
einfach genial...
November 21 at 7:17am

Michael Sprague · Manager, Digital Marketing & Business Strategy at Hasbro, Inc.
Cheers team RK.