UPDATE: 6.24.10

Sooo, we thought about quantifying, and especially the friends at the #quantifiedself meetup who would loooove to get their 10 prehensile digits (we hope) on this sort of feature.

But then we looked at how people are already “sort of” quantifying activity on Get Up and Move, and what seems to matter to y’all.

We found out it looks like you really puffy heart knowing how likely a person is to do his/her part if you put out some action too.

So we added some nifty Ajaxy buttons (they’re nifty Easter Egg in Miami Springtime light purple with magenta – or something – outlines).

These will tell you how many challenges a user has completed, waiting, and hidden – as long as they have a public profile.

We’re also gnoshing on a potential API. Shazaam!!

:) Jen
Who brushed her teeth (true story) while doing this reply…

UPDATE 12.29.09:

Hey Myk -

We’re still looking at how best to showcase anonymized aggregate ‘guammie’ stats without feeling like we’re exposing any microchunk of stuff done by folks who want all their shizzle to stay private.

Working on an export function for version 3 or 4, but it’ll take us a bit – for now keep movin’!

:) Jen

Hola Myk;

Great point mi amigo.

So we’re thinking (I know, it doesn’t happen all that often) a few things…

1. We would like to see TOTAL stats by activity type on the main page to keep people feeling all warm and fuzzy.

2. We would like to see INDIVIDUAL total stats when you see your completed challenges.

Who knows, maybe we’ll get really crazy up in hurr and show your completed challenges, challenges you’ve shared that others have completed, and ‘open’ challenges.

Back to work!

:) @jensmccabe
Lifted cup of melting ice to mouth 3 times while typing this response. Probably burned .007 calories. Yeah micromovement!

Hola Minh-

Thanks for turning us on to Remember the Milk. I’d actually not seen the app before and darned if I’m not gonna kick the tires.

We’ve been consciously avoiding giving imoveyou (and it’s earlier cousin getupandmove.me) too much of a ‘must do’ or ‘to do’ oriented feel, but maybe it’s time to think about moving past our founder prejudices against to-do lists.

After all, what did deadlines ever do to us except remind us they’re passing us by?

Optional deadline setting sounds like a nifty in between solution – we’ve been afeared to alienate early users for whom 5 more minutes of movement a day is a significant delta.

How about if we put this on your settings page as an option? Would that work or be too ‘hidden?’

Also, have to admit I’m fascinated by the motivation for wanting a deadline that counts down to when you should complete a challenge. Do you find the extra pressure harrying or motivating?

Danke!
:) Jen
Thought about 50 deadline-oriented items on my Red-Yellow-Green task list while typing this, and figured I’d better hurry up the Uservoice replies!

UPDATE 12.30.09

Hola -

Just to let you know you typed, we listened.

Several of our initial ‘guammie’ members are clamoring for the ability to calendar challenges, send set reminders, and ‘snooze’ a challenge if, say, they can’t complete it til home from work.

Look for these features in version 6.0, which should be coming in your way in February.

We’re remaining committed to keeping this social, so we’re going through invite systems now to see what works and what doesn’t.

:) Jen

Hey anonymous -

I’m giving this 2 of my own votes, which I parcel out like Santa giving lumps of coal to bad kids. (Wait, does that mean frequently, or infrequently? Anywho…)

Excellent idea.

The microfitness concept we’ve started with was intended to allow people to do random acts of ‘flash fitness’ in the moment, rather than having to add them to a calendar (which we thought might feel like another burden on the dreaded daily ‘to do’ list rather than a quick fun favor for a friend).

However, we’ve already heard we may have underestimated our users on this one, and that plenty of you would like to complete a challenge but may have to wait til you get off work, or the kids are napping, etc.

Thanks for the idea! Would you want to Google calendar it, a la the Eventbrite model, too?

Bedankt -
:) @jensmccabe

Hoi More Awesome-

Nice handle ;).

You bring up an interesting point – while virtuous actions may be helpful for the folks who need social pressure to do ’em, they might come across as pretty darn white bread (excuse the expression) for the rest of us.

imoveyou.com wasn’t built as a site for lurking. As you point out, there’s really no incentive to come use it unless there’s something you want to do that’s better for you.

Now that you mention it, I can see where an aspirational platform such as the one we’ve got going might be kind of boring to the voyeuristic among us…

But your comment also kind of illuminates the point of the site…generating self awareness and moving users to act.

If you look at what other folks are having a tough time doing moving from ‘intent’ to ‘action,’ and judge whether or not it’s a behavior in which you want to engage or which you want to ignore (or decry), you’re still becoming a bit more self aware – or at least demonstrating that you wish social norms would encourage ‘fringe’ or ‘unboring’ behaviors.

As for drinking at work, two chicks at the same time, and debauchery (timedebauchery is even more interesting, and pretty sure that’s what Twitter wants to be when it grows up) – if you find it interesting, go for it.

While I may be down for some debauchery on my own time, it’s not exactly something I need social pressure to complete, know what I mean?

:) Jen
Wondering if drinking coffee at work counts? What about getting my next tattoo?

UPDATE: 6.24.10

Biometric tracksing it wants-ss hmmm?

My precious, we are working to lock up pilots with some of the device makers.

This is a sticky hardware/software integration. It’s sort of like Ireland and Northern Ireland. Tough, but not impossible to unite.

That said, an API that lets other developers work with this would be sorta nifty hmm?

Rubs chin-
:)Jen

Hola offbeatmammal -

Integrating personal biometrics or ‘Me-trics’ tracked via devices and personal health platforms is something we definitely want to be able to do ‘when we grow up.’ :)

For now the integration with PHR platforms is what we call a ‘long’ term goal, meaning we hope to be working on integration by the end of Q1.

We’ll definitely move more quickly on this if we can…

Another issue here is to verify the movement in order to load into the PHR semi-automagically. If we build a smartphone app we can do this, and begin to validate whether or not a user is actually moving using the geolocation/GPS and accelerometer functions inborn in the phone.

Integrating data from other devices is a bit trickier, but still, we hear you. Insanely valuable to measure and manage challenges as part of your longer term personal health narrative.

We’re a’workin’ on it!

:) Jenn

Why hello Y=X,

Nice point of origin.

We’ve looked at two options for integrating txt/SMS challenge notifications and reminders so far: Eliza (a health company out of Boston) and Twilio.

Each has costs associated, and so we’re trying to find a partner who will ‘sponsor’ SMS integration for a pilot.

Alternately, we could keep the site free but pass the cost of receiving the SMS messages along to our users, but we figured that’d cause WWIII.

If you know of any other services we should evaluate, we’re all ears.

Got a question for you…

Would you be willing to pay for your own SMS messages related to imoveyou.com challenges?

We’re not actually sure how our users feel about this…but we suspect only about 10-15% would be willing to pay for this aspect of the service.

We could be wrong though – wouldn’t be the first time (nor, dare I say, the last).

:) Jen
Who recently had to go to an unlimited SMS plan for her iPhone, and may actually have fallen asleep last night mid-txt conversation clutching the device for dear life.

Dear offbeatmammal -

This. Is. AWESOME.

We definitely support this kind of thing – ‘leveling up’ to a larger challenge that supports someone other than the guammies participating.

We’re looking at ways to integrate micropayments/virtual goods and microfinance philanthropy options.

To give you an idea of where we are in the process, our version 2.0 is live, and we offered unscripted challenges.

The next step is version 3.0 (mid January release) which will integrate Facebook and make some other small user experience improvements.

At version 4.0, ie the end of this month, we’ll have group challenges but may not have the best way to donate in a legitimate, verifiable way figured out…that may take us a bit longer, as will establishing a profile that let’s you track weekly checkins.

A quick question on that – we think the differentiating factor for getupandmove.me is that we’re working more on the motivation end than the logging and tracking end – any particular way you can think of where we can keep the motivation for longer term goals social?

:) Jen

Who may have gnawed on a nail or two while pondering this one…