I love my Subaru Outback, mainly because I can take it anywhere, put anything in it or on it and it runs like a charm. Something else I love about it is the digital dashboard display. This display tells me things like, how long my drive time is, my avg. MPG’s and how hot it is outside. Each day on my commute home I try and shave minutes off my drive time or I take different ways home to see if that changes the avg. MPG and the display lets me measure all of this. It’s really entertaining and adds big value to my driving experience. The cool thing is, that this idea can be applied anywhere. For instance the Nike+ product is a great way to combine product and statistics. When applied to a website, especially one that has members who are working towards a goal the idea gets very interesting. Even if the task isn’t epic in nature, the more statistics you can give to a user relating to the task, the more
enjoyment the user will get. What I’m saying is why not share all those metrics you capture for your clients with your members? You all ready have the information, so why not give your users some bonus value? They will appreciate this. This also means the user will spend more time on the site, talk to more people about it, tell their friends to join, tweet/blog about it… and well you get the point.
Interesting idea, Marcus. I think a lot of times the details are glazed over as unimportant, but I love how a GPS will tell you what altitude you're at, or offer you little pieces of information that are just 'oh, thats cool' rather than absolutely necessary.
In the many things we use, the technology is usually there, but not being used. I absolutely love how easy Nike+ turns their statistics into something enjoyable – I love seeing fellow runners tweet out the stats on their last run. In fact, I haven't considered Nike+ until now because of that. The more you can use statistics in an engaging, fun way, the more equity you will build for your brand.
Seth, Awesome comments. I think when you said
"The more you can use statistics in an engaging, fun way, the more equity you will build for your brand."
Sums up the point I was trying to make nicely. I hope more brands add value through statistics. Nike+ is a great example but I think their model can be emulated. I guarantee that more brands will realize the value of giving stats to your users.
-Marcus