When I first got my smart phone I couldn’t wait to tell my wife about all of the great applications – the New York Times, NFL Mobile, and Navigation. She couldn’t wait to tell me about Angry Birds.
Very quickly, I learned that applications were called apps and there is an app for just about everything. To illustrate this point I had a skier friend enthusiastically tell me about the apps for his sport as he drove up to the slopes for the last run of the 2010-2011 season. I am not a frequent skier, but his discussion about the use of apps in his sport was intriguing.
As I quickly learned, Colorado’s ski companies are using social media (Facebook, Twitter, and mobile applications) to let the world know about everything from recent snowfall to special online deals to number of runs skied.
One of my friends favorite apps used the RFID tags on season tickets to track the number of days skied and vertical miles logged. He and his buddies used the app for “bragging rights” and to determine who bought the beers at the end of the day. Another option allows users with smart phones to get alerts when friends are on the mountain. Obviously, users had to opt into these options to allow this type of tracking.
Another app, Realski, allows users to take pictures and geotag them. On the slopes, users can then relocate that special powder or terrain. Off the slopes it may be used to help find the car in the parking lot after a long day on the slopes or a late night in the watering holes.
Ski operators market the mobile apps as a tool for enhancing the skier/boarder experience. As well, they also see it as an opportunity to increase communications with their customers and strengthen brand loyalty. In theory everyone wins.
This brief post is not intended to be a comprehensive review of ski and boarder mobile aps, rather it illustrates how they are being applied to recreation activities to improve a person’s sporting experience and to strengthen companys’ financial stakes in those sports. Watch for similar apps in your favorite sports and recreational activities.