NikePlus, Social Media and a herd of elephants…

I am, for my sins, a ‘technoholic’. I love gadgets. I love iPhones, computers, TVs, HiFi and Wifi. And the first thing I do when I get home with my latest purchase (after the window shattering argument with my girlfriend of course) is throw the instructions in the bin!!! I don’t like being told what to do especially by some ink and a piece of paper. I will go out of my way to use technology to make my life easier (or complicated as is usually the case) and fun (or frustrating as is, again, usually the case).

It is for this reason that I find myself contemplating going for a run. Let me be clear; I HATE running. I find it monotonous, boring and on the few occasions that I have taken part in this punishing past-time, I come home feeling like I have been attacked by a herd of stampeding elephants. Don’t get me wrong, I have enormous respect for people who go running. Especially people (men in particular) who have the courage to walk out the door in spandex, put enormous energy into placing one foot in front of the other for an hour and a half only to end up back where they started.

Why then would I contemplate such drastic action? One word; technology. I had heard of Nike+ a while ago but only recently took time to research it and can safely admit that you can slap me silly and call me Mr Impressed! I want to be part of this. I really do!

If you want to know how it works, you simply place a small electronic sensory perceptive coagulating transcendiducer (note, may not be actual name of device) into your shoe and it communicates information about your run to your iPod/iPhone or Nike+ wrist band. Things like your speed, distance, calories burned, weight lost etc are then uploaded to the Internet for online humiliation (in my case anyway).

I went to the website and was shocked to learn that Nike+ runners have circled the globe a staggering 8,148 times, burned 2,756,587 kilos and have run a total of 325,995,368 no, 369, no, 370, no, 371 kilometres. WOW! Here, I could look at clear and funky looking charts telling me that I ran x number of kilometres (and still ended up back where I started), I can input the type of terrain I ran in and select the kind of weather I experienced (although, living in Belgium, it only needs 1 setting).

It can give me challenges, coach me to get up to the optimum fitness level and even prepare me for a marathon (an unlikely scenario but nice to know I can). Finally, and here’s the really interesting bit, I can share all of this with my fellow spandex wearing compatriots around the world. (“Take that Rupert Murdoch. You may have all my money but I ran 300 metres further than you today!!!”). Therein lies the beauty of social media mixed with technology.

Doing a search using Attentio’s Trenpedia, I can see that there are roughly 15 to 20 posts on average every day mentioning Nike Plus. I also turned on my Tweetdeck to search for NikePlus and the thing was bleeping at me more than the SS Enterprise.

Do a search for NikePlus on http://search.twitter.com and you will be inundated with times and distances that people foolishly ran in what is obstensibly a large circle.

Will I be taking part in this ingenious use of social media to get fit? I might… but that’s not the point. The point is that I’m THINKING about doing it and for every lazy, pub-going, techno freak like me, there will be at least one other person out there who will don skin tight shorts and almost see-through top in order to leave the house only to end up back there an hour later having accomplished little other than painful kneecaps and a loss of dignity. I just hope that it’s the 19 year old Brazilian supermodel I have in my imagination. All of this because of technology and social media. As for me, insanity subsided, I’m off to the pub!

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