Strava on Thursday announced a slew of latest features and updates at its annual Camp Strava event, because the San Francisco-headquartered company doubles down on efforts to make its social fitness app stickier each totally free and premium subscribers — with artificial intelligence (AI) playing a central role.
One among the perennial complaints emanating from the Strava community is that users sometimes cheat to realize lofty leaderboard positions on the app. Leaderboards are one in every of Strava’s core features, designed to stir competition by allowing users to challenge one another over predefined routes called “segments.” Cheating might involve something like using a bike or e-bike somewhat than a pedal bike to set a record, for example.
Strava already has some mechanisms in place to let users manually flag dubious leaderboard activity, and last yr, the corporate updated its algorithms to “make leaderboards more credible.” That included withholding activities that will have been incorrectly labeled (e.g., users tagging a run as a motorbike ride), or where faulty GPS data is likely to be at play.
Now Strava says it’ll start using more sophisticated machine learning to detect “questionable” activities after they’re uploaded to the platform and routinely remove said activities. The corporate says it’s doing so by training its algorithms on thousands and thousands of historical activities to raised understand what “normal” activity looks like.
Apparently, that is one in every of Strava’s most-requested features, with a fast glance at its fervent online community revealing various ideas on how you can take care of the “digital doping” problem.
When pushed to supply more details on how this works, and the way exactly it differs from its existing automated leaderboard integrity tooling, chief product officer Matt Salazar merely said that it’s a “step-change” in how Strava is using AI, machine learning, and other technologies to “close gaps.”
“Last yr, the team implemented latest logic rules to existing auto-flagging tools, and now, we’re leveraging newer technologies to deliver one in every of our most requested features from athletes,” Salazar said in a press release issued to TechCrunch.
On the same note, Strava on Thursday announced the private beta of a feature it’s calling “athlete intelligence,” which amounts to generative AI that analyzes user data to create summaries and guidance on their performance and fitness goals. This shall be available to premium subscribers only.
Strava wouldn’t confirm whether the underlying engine is one in every of OpenAI’s GPT-X models or something else, but Salazar did say the corporate is currently experimenting with different technologies ahead of a broader rollout.
“We’ve several models and tools that we’ve checked out and currently applied a model that works for the beta,” Salazar said. “We’re continuing to judge what’s going to provide the perfect result for our community.”
Strava can also be introducing dark mode, which, in line with data on the Strava Community Hub, is the app’s second most desired feature by variety of votes.
This has been a protracted time coming, definitely in comparison with other popular apps — just last week, WhatsApp went up to now as to launch an excellent “darker” dark mode.
Still, higher late than never. Strava says it’ll introduce dark mode “later this summer,” with the power to maintain the app permanently in dark mode or configure it in order that it matches the device settings. This shall be available to each premium and free users when it launches.
It’s (not strictly) a family affair
Just like other online subscription services resembling Spotify, Strava is now throwing its weight behind what it calls a “family plan” to entice bulk sign-ups through subscription discounts and get more people using the platform. As much as 4 people, including the first subscriber, will be included in a single family plan.
But “family plan” is definitely something of a misnomer here, because it doesn’t should include actual relations and even anyone living at the identical address. It could be anyone who lives in the identical country.
“It should create more opportunities for Strava athletes to proceed finding and experiencing motivation, and make it cheaper too,” Salazar said. “The nice a part of this latest annual subscription is that you simply select who is a component of your loved ones plan — it could actually be your pals, running crew or teammates.”
Playing liberally with the definition of “family” on this context does make sense, on condition that families won’t devour Strava in the identical way as they could Netflix or Spotify. However the name of the plan might confuse some users by way of who qualifies for coverage. Perhaps “group subscription plan” or something to that effect might make more sense.
At any rate, Strava continues to be slightly cagey on the main points, including how much this bulk discount will amount to (it does say the proportion savings will vary by country), how one goes about sharing their subscription, and what happens within the event of a “family” fallout — can one member of a gaggle easily keep their very own account and data, for instance?
The brand new plan will kick off in “select countries” this summer, starting with Australia and Canada, with a broader international rollout following later within the yr.
These announcements come at a turbulent time for Strava. Co-founder Michael Horvath recently stepped down from the CEO position for the second time and was replaced in January by former YouTube executive Michael Martin. The corporate also last month procured a brand new chief technology officer (CTO) alongside Salazar, who left Epic Games to hitch Strava as chief product officer.
The news also follows a yr after Strava introduced a brand new premium pricing structure that drew considerable criticism over its lack of transparency.
Nevertheless, it’s clear that Strava is attempting to bolster its value proposition for users, borrowing some tried-and-true tricks from the broader social networking sphere. The importance of Strava’s social positioning can’t be understated by way of differentiating it from other data-centric fitness tracking services resembling Apple Fitness or Garmin. That is why Strava rolled out in-app messaging last yr, intended to foster communities that exist entirely inside Strava without having to depend on third-party messaging apps like WhatsApp to arrange events and outings.
These latest updates construct on that, mixing free features that everybody gets with premium features for power users.
Demographics
A technique Strava can entice latest users is by broadening its appeal to different demographics. It’s doing just that with an upcoming latest feature that builds on its existing global heatmaps feature, which highlights probably the most well-trodden running, riding, and walking routes.
Taking things a step further, “night heatmaps,” when it launches later this yr, will focus specifically on activities that occur between sundown and sunrise, which is likely to be useful for those concerned about going out for a walk or a jog in less-trafficked areas. This, Strava hopes, will help encourage more women to start out using the platform, though in point of fact it’ll appeal to anyone wishing to avoid quieter places within the wee hours.
“Studies show that girls of all ages take part in sports at a far lower rate than men, and overall, despite wanting to be lively, find less time to dedicate to an lively lifestyle,” Strava wrote in a blog post accompanying the announcements. “As the corporate continues on its mission to motivate people to live their best lively lives, constructing for girls on the platform will ultimately serve everyone within the Strava community.”
On top of that, not everyone desires to share all their activity data with everyone on a regular basis. Thus, Strava said it’ll launch a brand new “quick edit” feature that lets users more easily conceal certain metrics from their workout stats, the style of activity they did, their location, and more.
While “quick edit” shall be free, Strava says that night heatmaps shall be a premium feature, meaning that anyone wanting to see what the safest routes are after dark can have to pony up $12/month or $80/yr to access this.
Strava wouldn’t confirm how lots of its 125 million members are lively users, or what the gender split is. But the corporate previously reported that girls are “23% less likely than men to record any style of activity pre-sunrise, and eight% less prone to achieve this post-sunset.”
But Salazar said that certain demographics are showing signs of growth on the platform.
“Whilst we don’t provide exact details on the Strava community as a complete, what we are able to share is that globally and within the U.S., our user-demographic of Gen Z women has experienced great growth, taking it to twice that of what it was right now last yr,” he said.
