Almost everyone – okay, basically everyone – in run specialty knows and about utilizes the many services provided by Strava — in fact, more than 150 million users in over 185 countries use Strava. With that in mind, Running Insight recently came across some of the new developments in the running community that retailers and brands should know about.
- Athlete Intelligence: Strava’s AI-powered feature that analyzes and summarizes key takeaways from subscribers.
- What’s new: The feature now includes virtual run/ride data, power insights and segment analysis. Additionally, the feature is now out of beta. According to Strava, this decision was made based on specific criteria such as seeing similar positive feedback rates between run and ride activities, more accurate insights with fewer mistakes.
- Leaderboard Integrity: Strava has improved leaderboard quality and identifies unrealistic speeds, GPS errors and other anomalies that could skew leaderboard results. This aims to keep the competition on the app fair for all athletes by removing outliers and potential rule violations.
- What’s new: Every activity uploaded to Strava is now automatically analyzed by its machine learning model, which looks at 57 different factors, like speed and acceleration, to determine if any portion of an activity was recorded in a vehicle. If the system detects a vehicle, the activity is flagged, and the user is prompted to crop it or make it private. Next Strava is applying this same technology to prevent bike rides on run leaderboards and ebikes on ride leaderboards. This is part of its ongoing effort to keep leaderboards fair and reflect true performances.
- Flyover Off-platform Sharing: Strava’s updated Flyover, its dynamic 3D map for playing back activities, now includes off-platform sharing capabilities.
- What’s new: Subscribers can share their Flyover directly to Instagram Stories or via a shareable link for other platforms. To share a Flyover, subscribers will need to click on the “share” button on the Activity Details Page or the Flyover screen. After beginning the process to share, there will be a push notification to notify users when the video is ready. Longer activities may need more time for the video to generate. Flyovers are available for GPS-enabled activities on the subscriber’s own profile, including past activities.
- Progress Comparison: Subscribers can now compare past efforts side-by-side to track improvements and help gauge progress towards personal milestones and race goals.
- What’s new: The updated progress summary chart now includes a comparison mode so athletes can contrast recent activities against past time ranges of training. This capability enables athletes to do deeper analysis and uncover trends in their performance.
