Me-trics wants to be “Google analytics for your life.” By doing that, it collects data from countless places on the Web based on your activity and will let you input data like blood pressure or stress level to find correlations between something you have observed and the data you input.
The startup presented today during the Collaboration session of TechCrunch50. You can watch the video of its presentation here.
During the demo, Me-trics explained that one user had high blood pressure and wanted to know what was causing it. First, they input daily blood pressure data and then tracked stress level, beer drinking, and other metrics that may have had an impact on blood pressure. From there, they added more data to find correlations between other elements included and found that Twitter usage declined their stress level.
But the main problem with Me-trics is that it requires users to manually input data, so the company is pulling data from fitness and financial sites, social data from Twitter and Friendfeed, and will start adding other services to add data automatically based on the availability of APIs.
To reduce the effect of trying to remember stress levels or thoughts, the company added a mobile app to let you input data on-the-fly.
Me-trics is available now and the company says that its correlation method will improve as more services are added over time.
Expert Panelists
Kevin Rose:
“Have you ever used Mood Stats? It was released four or five years ago.”
Answer: “That collects data, but we’re analyzing it and bringing things together in relationships.”
Kevin Rose:
“When Mood Stats launched, I thought it was really cool, but it was only fun for the first week and after that, it was a chore. And putting data in there is frustrating over time and you should automate that as much as possible.”
Answer: “We see the utility of this as the plethora of data and collecting automated data as often as possible and that’s always increasing thanks to the availability of APIs.”
Don Dodge:
“I think it’s a good idea because health and fitness is important. I’ve seen a lot of companies in this space though and many are popping up by tracking how much you eat, how much you exercise. Maybe that’s a good sign. But getting people to input data is tough. How many people will actually input blood pressure?”
Answer: “We see our competitors as inputs, as well as social and financial data.”
Mark Cuban:
“I love the idea, but I don’t think it has value on the Web. You have the hammer of the Web and everything looks like the nail. If I were you, I’d bring this where there’s already digital outputs and selling yourself as a personal UI that can correlate data becomes a valuable tool. The number of Twitter posts? Not so much. Being able to take that data and personally and privately use it puts you a couple years ahead of the curve. You’ve gotta make it so there’s no work involved, but I wouldn’t focus on the number of XML feeds, but on devices.”
Kevin Rose:
“Manufacturers want to go online and you can go there and get them to work together with you. Start thinking about using Wii Fit.”
Answer: “I think there’s a tremendous value in how this will have an impact on me as a creator.”
Mark Cuban:
“Kevin hit the nail on the head. The Wii Fit idea is what you should go after.”
Don Dodge:
“What’s your business model?”
A. “It’s a little complicated because we’re worried about privacy. We want to show product manufactures to show them on aggregate basis for how their products are being used.”
Roleof Botha:
“I like the idea because we’re all hypochondriacs and that has merit.”
Mark Cuban:
“I would use the fear factor like radiation consumed and start freaking people out. Scare the hell out of people and they’ll think they need you.”