Wrong on Thursday announced a number of new features and updates to its annual Camp Strava event, as the San Francisco-based company doubles down on efforts to make the social fitness app stickier for both free and premium subscribers — with artificial intelligence (AI) playing a central role.
One of the perennial complaints coming from the Strava community is that users sometimes they cheat to reach high scoreboard positions in the application. Leaderboards are one of Strava’s key features, designed to spark competition by allowing users to challenge each other on predetermined routes called “departments.” Cheating might involve something like using a motorcycle or e-bike instead of a pedal bike to set a record, for example.
Strava already has some mechanisms in place to allow users to manually flag suspicious leaderboard activity, and last year, the company updated its algorithms to “make leaderboards more reliable.” This included intercept activities that may have been mislabeled (eg users tagging a run as a bike ride) or where faulty GPS data may be at play.
Now Strava says it will start using more sophisticated machine learning to detect “questionable” activities when they’re uploaded to the platform and automatically remove those activities. The company says it does this by training its algorithms on millions of historical activities to better understand what “normal” activity looks like.
Apparently, this is one of Strava’s most requested features, and a quick look at its fervent online community reveals various ideas on how to tackle the problem of “digital doping”.
When pressed for more details on how this works and exactly how it differs from the existing automated leaderboard integrity tool, Chief Product Officer Matt Salazar He simply said it’s a “step change” in how Strava uses artificial intelligence, machine learning and other technologies to “close the gaps.”
“Last year, the team applied new logical rules to our existing auto-tagging tools, and now, we’re leveraging newer technologies to deliver one of our most requested features by athletes,” Salazar said in a statement issued to TechCrunch.
On a similar note, Strava on Thursday announced the private beta of a feature it calls “Athlete Intelligence,” which amounts to creating artificial intelligence that analyzes users’ data to create summaries and guidance on performance and fitness goals. This will only be available to premium subscribers.
Strava hasn’t confirmed whether the underlying engine is one of OpenAI’s GPT-X models or something else, but Salazar said the company is currently experimenting with different technologies before a wider release.
“We have a lot of models and tools that we’ve looked at and we’ve currently implemented a working model for the beta release,” Salazar said. “We continue to evaluate what will deliver the best outcome for our community.”
Strava is also introducing dark mode, which, according to Strava community hub datait is the second most desired app feature by number of votes.
This has been a long time coming, certainly compared to other popular apps – just last week, WhatsApp went so far as to launch an even “darker” dark mode.
However, better late than never. Strava says it will introduce dark mode “later this summer,” with the ability to keep the app permanently in dark mode or configure it to match the device’s settings. This will be available to both premium and free users when it launches.
It’s (not strictly) a family affair
Similar to other online subscription services like Spotify, Strava is now throwing its weight behind what it calls a “family plan” to entice mass sign-ups through subscription discounts and get more people using the platform. Up to four people, including the primary subscriber, can be included in a family plan.
But “family plan” is actually something of a misnomer here, as it doesn’t have to include actual family members or even anyone living at the same address. It can be anyone living in the same country.
“It will create more opportunities for Strava athletes to continue to find and experience motivation, and it will also make it more affordable,” Salazar said. “The great part about this new annual membership is that you choose who is part of your family program — it can be your friends, your crew or your teammates.”
Playing loose with the definition of “family” in this context makes sense, given that families won’t consume Strava in the same way as Netflix or Spotify. However, the name of the plan may confuse some users as to who qualifies for coverage. Maybe “group membership plan” or something like that would make more sense.
Anyway, Strava is still a bit tight-lipped about the details, including how much this bulk discount will be (it says the percentage savings will vary by country), how one will share their subscription and what happens in the case of a “family” disaster recovery — can a member of a team easily maintain their own account and data, for example?
The new design will launch in “select countries” this summer, starting with Australia and Canada, with a wider international rollout to follow later in the year.
These announcements come at a turbulent time for Strava. Co-founder Michael Horvath recently stepped down as CEO for a second time and was replaced in January by a former YouTube executive Michael Martin. The company too last month he got a new one Chief Technology Officer (CTO) alongside Salazar, who left Epic Games to join Strava as Chief Product Officer.
The news also follows a year after Strava introduced a new premium pricing structure that drew considerable criticism due to the lack of transparency.
However, it’s clear that Strava is trying to strengthen its value proposition for users by borrowing some tried and true tricks from the wider social media sphere. The importance of Strava’s social status cannot be understated in terms of differentiating it from other data-centric fitness tracking services such as Apple Fitness or Garmin. That’s why Strava launched in-app messaging last year, with the goal of empowering communities that exist entirely within Strava without having to rely on third-party messaging apps like WhatsApp to organize events and excursions.
These new updates build on that, combining free features that everyone has with premium features for power users.
Demographics
One way Strava can attract new users is by broadening its appeal to different demographics. It’s doing just that with an upcoming new feature that builds on it existing feature of global heat mapswhich highlights the most well-traveled running, riding and hiking routes.
Taking things a step further, the ‘nighttime heatmaps’, when released later this year, will focus specifically on activities that occur between sunset and sunrise, which could be useful for those interested in going out for a walk or a jog in less traffic areas. This, Strava hopes, will help encourage more women to start using the platform, although it will actually be aimed at anyone wishing to avoid quieter places in the early hours of the morning.
“Studies show that women of all ages participate in sports at a much lower rate than men, and overall, even though they want to be active, they find less time to devote to an active lifestyle,” Strava wrote in a blog post that accompanied the announcements. “As the company continues its mission to inspire people to live their best active lives, building for women on the platform will ultimately serve everyone in the Strava community.”
Additionally, not everyone wants to share all of their activity data with everyone all the time. So Strava said it will roll out a new “quick edit” feature that allows users to more easily hide certain metrics from their workout stats, the type of activity they did, their location and more.
While “quick editing” will be free, Strava says nighttime heatmaps will be a premium feature, meaning anyone who wants to see what the safest routes are after dark will have to shell out $12/month or $80/ year to access it.
Strava has not confirmed how many of its 125 million members are active users or what the gender breakdown is. But the company previously mentioned that women are “23% less likely than men to record any type of activity before sunrise and 8% less likely to do so after sunset.”
But Salazar said some demographics are showing signs of growth on the platform.
“While we don’t provide exact details for the Strava community as a whole, what we can share is that globally and in the US, our Gen Z female demographic has seen great growth, doubling that number. it was this time last year,” he said.
