When London-based Tribesports — a social network for people doing rather than watching various sports — rebooted its business model last year, kickstarting what it calls the world’s first “community-powered” sportswear brand, you’d be forgiven for thinking the young company had become less tech and more clothes-maker.
But, actually, Tribesports very much still sees itself as a creator of social web and mobile applications, which underpin its 200,000+ user base, and in turn enable those users to become co-creators and co-marketers of its new sportswear range. It’s a model that, perhaps, defies conventional corporate thinking whereby “we need an app” is often little more than a marketing afterthought.
Today Tribesports is launching a new iOS app dedicated to training. The app, which is completely free, shunning paid-for add-ons or other premium pricing, lets you track, analyse and review your training, and, unlike something like Runkeeper, has been designed to work across multiple sports — something the company thinks reflects how many of its users actually train.
Naturally, the app ties into the existing Tribesports community, allowing you to follow the training sessions/workouts of other users, as well as browse thousands of community uploaded workouts or share you own.
In some ways, the Tribesports Training app offers a subset of features found in the main Tribesports app but redesigned to focus on mobile training, including, of course, a heavy use of GPS. It’s also no doubt designed to appeal to users who may not want to join and participate in a dedicated sports social network.
The GPS tracking features enable you to track and analyse your running, cycling, walking and more, underpinned by weekly, monthly and all-time-best graphs. You can also take in-app photos, which are then uploaded as part of logging your training session. All in all, over 900 different sports and exercises are available to log in workouts and training sessions out of the box, and there’s the option to customise your own and share these templates.
Of course, if Tribesports can get a greater number of people engaging with its technology wares, it can also introduce those same users to its own big brand-busting sportswear.
Training? There’s an apparel for that, too.