Andy Smith, CEO of IAC-owned DailyBurn, says that the benefit of fitness-tracking tools goes away after the first few weeks, and users ultimately fall into the same activity — or inactivity — patterns as before.

“They do help a small subset of people,” Smith said. “You find that there are type-A personalities that like to track everything, and that’s great. For others, it might give them a little jump start. But the value proposition of those devices after the first few weeks goes way down.”

DailyBurn is a fitness-data-tracking company that is now focusing on fitness content. The company pivoted partly because data-tracking wasn’t all that effective, Smith said.

Last week, Nike introduced a $150 lightweight wristband with a tri-axis accelerometer for gauging activity levels; earlier this week, Fitbit — maker of the popular Fitbit device — announced that it had raised $12 million in Series C funding to continue making fitness products.

Nike’s FuelBand just became available for preorder, so it’s too early to tell how enthusiastic consumers are about that particular device. And while it’s unclear how many Fitbit units have sold since it hit the market in 2009, the newer Fitbit Ultra is listed as one of the top 50 products in the health-and-fitness section on Amazon.com.

Another wearable fitness device, the Jawbone UP, is currently in production limbo as the company deals with technical and hardware issues, but the wristband was initially received with excitement from some consumers.

“I feel like these are not quite a gimmick, but are close to it,” Smith told AllThingsD. “You get people to spend $100 to $150 bucks on something that’s just a glorified accelerometer — which, by the way, you have in your phone, too.”

“I think people know when they’re not active,” Smith added. “They know if they didn’t move around enough today. I don’t buy it.”

Smith’s opinion is informed by the fact that DailyBurn used to be more data-oriented, but has since shifted its strategy become more content-focused, he said.

DailyBurn first launched in 2008 under the name Gyminee. Back then, the company was tailored more toward fitness data tracking and the sharing of data through social networks to help users meet their weight loss goals.

In May 2010, the company was acquired by IAC. At the time, the company claimed 500,000 members; Smith said it has around two million users now.

Following the acquisition, DailyBurn introduced the DailyBurn Tracker app, as well as food-tracking app Meal Snap, an attempt to spur weight loss motivation by giving caloric estimates based on photos of food.

Ultimately, Smith said, constant tracking isn’t necessarily the best way to facilitate that.

With DailyBurn’s newest fitness product — a personalized Web video program that streams over smartphones and the iPad to users’ TV sets — the company is focused on getting people to exercise four to six times a week, for 30 minutes a day, at a good level of intensity. It’s not something you buy that’s a quick fix, Smith said.

Readers, what are your thoughts? Are health-and-fitness tracking devices useful or useless?

The new round comes entirely from existing investors Foundry Group, True Ventures, SoftTech VC and Felicis Ventures.

The company said it plans to use the funding mainly for hiring and for aggressive product development. Fitbit declined to elaborate further on what type of new product or products it has up its sleeve, except to say that it is now looking ahead to other connected and affordable health-and-fitness devices for the year, and is hiring top engineers to get the company there.

But Fitbit’s next steps — no pun intended — probably need to be very strategic ones.

The funding round comes amid increasing competition from other makers of wear-’em-and-forget-’em data-tracking devices. While Fitbit has been a leader in this area of health-and-fitness tracking, Jawbone, a maker of audio products, launched the $99 UP wristband tracker late last year, which was initially received with enthusiasm. And Nike just introduced its version of a polymer-encased wristband, the FuelBand.

The Jawbone UP has since suffered technical difficulties, forcing the company to refund unhappy customers and temporarily pause production.

But with the $149 FuelBand, Nike has brought big-brand cachet to activity tracking. And Nike isn’t just targeting the serious athlete or runner anymore — it’s going after the casual athlete and the desk jockey, too.

While some fitness devices involve the use of pedometers, accelerometers or galvanic skin-response sensors, Nike’s band promises to combine oxygen uptake with the activity tracked through the device’s tri-axis accelerometer for a high-tech reading. To be fair, it’s not entirely clear yet how that differentiates the FuelBand, and we won’t be able to gauge how well it works until we can get our hands on one and test it.

The Fitbit also uses a three-dimensional accelerometer to measure users’ steps and activity levels. When the $100 Fitbit device launched in 2008, it punched up the idea of the average pedometer, and offered hassle-free, wireless uploading of 24-7 personal analytics and activity data. Fitbit also created a Web dashboard through which users can monitor their activity levels; for $50 a year, Fitbit users can view even more detailed analytics.

In October 2011, the company introduced the Fitbit Ultra, which added a digital clock, a stopwatch and an altimeter that measures elevation gain; a Fitbit iPhone app was launched, too.

San Francisco-based Fitbit, which recently started selling Fitbits in Canada and the U.K., declined to say how many units have been sold to date. In the U.S., the Fitbit recently became available in Target stores through a retail partnership.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month, Fitbit also unveiled the Fitbit Aria, a Wi-Fi-enabled “smart” scale, as Forbes reported here. The company plans to ship the scale starting in April.

(Fitbit photo courtesy of Redefinery/Flickr)

The Nike+ FuelBand measures time, calories, steps and “NikeFuel.” It uses an accelerometer to measure movement, has built-in USB and 20 LED flights that flash red or green to show your progress, and can connect wirelessly to the iPhone via Bluetooth.

The FuelBand comes with a free iPhone app, and is social network friendly, for those users who want to share their activity updates with Facebook, Foursquare and even Path. For now, the FuelBand app is iOS-only. Stefan Olander, Nike’s vice president of digital sport, says that the company will eventually explore other mobile operating systems for the app.

Nike, for competitive reasons, currently isn’t sharing details on how the band calculates users’ NikeFuel levels, whether they’re running, skateboarding, or doing any other kind of physical activity. The idea of NikeFuel — a measurement or score of a user’s activity — sounds a little bit like the Fitbit’s “flower power” currency. It’s a way for users to compare workouts without necessarily referring to data like calories burned, which may differ from user to user.

With FuelBand, Nike seems to be taking a slightly different measurement approach from those of other makers of health-and-fitness bands. The company says it maps oxygen uptake against a three-axis accelerometer during both activity and downtime to measure the metabolic equivalent of a task (a.k.a. M.E.T).

The Jawbone UP, for example, measures steps, heart rate, calories burned and sleep patterns. Basis is also focused on measuring heart rate and other metrics with its Basis B1 Band (no chest strap needed). And BodyMedia’s Fit armband uses galvanic skin response (GSR) sensors to measure body temperature and how much heat has dissipated from the body to determine the amount of energy that’s being used.

The Nike+ FuelBand will be available for preorder in the U.S. on Jan. 19, and will cost $149 — more than the UP, less than the B1 Band, and in the same range as BodyMedia’s bands.

Nike has a few other wearable workout tools already on the market, but its FuelBand is really meant to be worn all day, so Nike device users don’t have to switch from day wear to workout wear. With the FuelBand, Olander says, Nike is aiming to hit all areas and levels of the fitness market, not just serious athletes and runners.

Here’s a quick rundown of how the FuelBand compares to Nike’s other fitness-monitoring devices:

There’s the Nike+ SportBand, which currently retails for $59, has a slightly bulkier form factor, and works in conjunction with a sensor that goes under the sock liner of your left-foot Nike+ compatible shoe. This one is water-resistant, tracks distance, pace, time elapsed and calories burned, and stores 30 hours of running data. (It’s also available as a “Livestrong” SportBand.)

There’s also the $199 Nike+ GPS Sportwatch powered by TomTom, which works with or without a Nike+ sensor as well as a Polar WearLink Transmitter for measuring heart rate. Compared to a single rubbery wristband, that’s a lot of stuff to carry around; without those devices, the watch alone shows a mapped route and tracks time, distance, pace, heart rate and calories burned. It plugs directly into a USB port on your computer to upload run data and recharge the battery.

And the Nike Amp+ iPod Remote is no longer available through Nike’s store, but way back in the day — four years ago — it was a nifty device that synced the Nike watch to users’ iPods and provided voice updates on time, distance, calories and pace during workouts.

Nintendo Wii U
The gaming company didn’t have a spot on the show floor at CES, but Nintendo offered private demos of its upcoming Wii U console, the successor to the popular Nintendo Wii.

The “new Wii” comes with a 6-inch tablet-like motion sensor control that offers a full touchscreen and alternative views of the game being played on the TV set. While using a larger controller to play games might seem cumbersome at first, the interactive options it adds can be fun. The new console also works with the standard Wii controllers, as well as the Wii Nunchuk and Balance Board. It supports 1080p HD output, and the games in the demo were remarkably crisp and clear.

But there are still more questions than answers about the Wii U. Its launch date is still pegged to sometime in the later part of the year, but exactly when and how much it will cost is still unknown. And while Nintendo was the front-runner in motion-sensor gaming with the Wii, Xbox Kinect, in the meantime, has been setting new gaming-console standards with its gesture-control technology, content partnerships and even basic voice command.

When asked about content partnerships in the works, Nintendo declined to comment on any specifics. As for voice-recognition technology, Nintendo also declined to say whether it would be added to the Wii U prior to launch; the company did point to some audio capabilities built into the tablet-like controller, and said it is exploring all kinds of possibilities right now.

Samsung Dual-View 3-D OLED TV
That’s quite a mouthful for a television set, so let’s simplify it: This is a TV that lets you watch two programs at the same time on the same screen — and not by creating separate boxes within the screen. Instead, users wear active-shutter 3-D glasses, and each wearer has a different 2-D image projected to them, or even a different TV show or movie.

What about audio, you ask? Good question: The audio for each program is streamed right through the glasses, so you’ll hear your own program, while your significant other sitting on the other side of the couch will hear his or her choice of entertainment.

A dual-view screen has a certain appeal for gamers, and both Sony and LG have introduced such screens for gaming purposes.

For the average TV watcher, this is notably both high-tech and isolating.

LG’s Blast Chiller
You might have heard about this one by now. We still think it’s cool, no pun intended.

It was apparent at this year’s CES show that appliance makers think we want fridges that tweet and washing machines that send messages to smartphones when the laundry is done. While interconnectivity within the home is still in its teenage — if not even earlier — stages, there was one feature of LG’s refrigerators that seemed quite smart: The Blast Chiller is a compartment that chills cans of soda or beer in about five minutes, and can cool down a larger bottle of wine in about eight minutes. It will be available in LG’s new line of refrigerators — price is unknown, but current models cost around $2,500. The Blast Chiller was definitely a favorite with conference-goers — likely because, by the end of the week, many may have wanted a cold beverage.

Corning Gorilla Glass, the Sequel
You might wonder where glass fits in at a tech show, but this isn’t just any soda-lime glass: It’s the ultra-thin, chemically strengthened Gorilla Glass that forms the displays of many smartphones and tablets, and even coats some laptops. Last week, Corning showed off Gorilla Glass that was 20 percent thinner and just as durable (which I was unable to break with a metal stick, as you can see from the photo here, although you might not want to use my arm strength as your gauge).

Gorilla Glass can be used to create stronger, brighter product displays, the company said. Last year, Corning had also said that it believed the future of glass was “3-D” or flexible glass that can be used in different form factors, including keyboards and kitchen countertops. At CES, the company showed how Gorilla Glass 2 can be used in home appliances and dashboard display systems.

Sleeper Pick: “The Patch”
As anticipated, armbands, accelerometers, exercise gear and health-and-fitness-focused apps dominated the digital-health section of CES this year (and even Jawbone’s UP armband made an appearance). But if you’re not ready for a full-time commitment to some of these devices, BodyMedia and Avery Dennison have come up with a temporary adhesive patch to test your resolve. Meant to be worn on the back of the left tricep for up to seven days, the patch combines the sensors of BodyMedia armbands with Avery Dennison’s wearable tech to aid in weight-loss management.

The patch is still awaiting U.S. regulatory clearance, so it may not be available until the third quarter of the year, or later. I’m told it will be less expensive than BodyMedia’s armbands, which run from $150 to $179 (and now work in conjunction with a new digital-wellness platform from fitness guru Jillian Michaels.)

But in future-form, a potentially inexpensive, disposable patch that has some of the same sensory capabilities of an armband could be an interesting fitness “gadget”: Slap it on, forget it’s there while you exercise, save the data and throw it out.

(Blast Chiller photo courtesy of Flickr/LGEPR)

MORE CES NEWS:

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• Walt Shows Off CES Gadgets for Fox Business News (Video)
• What Kind of Web Video Plans Does Sony Have? (Video)
• Fujitsu Seeking Way Into Crowded U.S. Smartphone Market
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• Microsoft Beefing Up CeBit Presence Even as It Pulls Back on CES
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• Schmidt-Storm Alert: The Google Chairman Didn’t Like Your Question
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• Motorola CEO: We’re Going to Release Fewer Phones This Year
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• And You Thought Jawbone UP Was Going to Miss the CES Party!
• Interview: T-Mobile CEO Says No Second AT&T Deal Out There
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• Why the Future of TV Won’t Be Here Soon
• Nvidia’s Tegra 3 Tries to Save Battery in All Sorts of Different Ways
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• Myspace — Yes, Myspace — Says It’s Going to Sell You Web TV
• Samsung Unveils “Super” 55-Inch OLED TV
• Nokia Unveils That LTE Windows Phone It’s Been Dying to Share
• Steve Ballmer Gives Ralph De La Vega a Very … Vigorous Greeting (Video)
• Interview: AT&T’s De La Vega on LTE, Tablets and Life After T-Mobile
• AT&T’s De La Vega: Shared Data Plans Still in the Works
• LG: 55-Inch Glasses-Free 3-D Screen Is on the Way
• LG Pushes 4G Smartphone Through Verizon: The LG Spectrum
• Live: AT&T’s Vegas Act Stars LTE and, Making Her Return to the Stage, Nokia
• CES Notebook: The Constant Search for Power and Vegas’ Worst-kept Secret
• Belkin Bringing Mobile TV to Lots of Cellphones, Will Anyone Tune In?
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Just in time to make your 2012 resolutions, email offers are pouring in to help you meet your goals.

The number of fitness-related deals offered over the past few days is twice as high as average, according to Yipit, which tracks the major daily deal providers, including Groupon, LivingSocial, Travelzoo, Amazon and Google.

Just a small sampling of the offers I’ve noticed: Lipotropic injections that promise to speed up your metabolism, boot camp to help whip you into shape, and Pilates and “hot yoga” galore. (Sorry, no Jane Fonda!)

Yipit said in December that the average number of fitness-related deals across the major daily deals providers in North America totaled 63.

But already this month, the numbers are much higher. On Tuesday, the number of fitness-related deals expiring that day totaled 85; on Wednesday, it soared to 163, and on Thursday it stayed elevated at 131.

But that doesn’t mean people are plunging in to make the fitness commitment. Yipit said that those deals are performing only slightly above average.

In December, the average fitness deal generated $4,852 in gross billings, but on Tuesday and Wednesday, the average fitness deal generated $5,085 in gross billings.

Yipit says those dollar figures are only a rough guide, since they only include deals that make the purchase-count information publicly available. Companies like Groupon now disclose only a subset of their deals.

The idea is to provide a resourceful community, as well as a “gamification” service that incentivizes better health. Users can do things like set up and track fitness goals and get SMS reminders to take medication.

The Careverge site is a product of Audax Health, a Washington, D.C.-based company that has raised $16 million from investors including New Leaf Ventures, TIAA-CREF CEO Roger Ferguson, former Aetna CEO Jack Rowe and former Apple CEO John Sculley.

Audax CEO Grant Verstandig said he believes Careverge is the first social network to receive HIPAA compliance, indicating a high level of security for users’ personal health data.

Verstandig, 22, dropped out of Brown University to found Audax, after seven knee surgeries effectively ended his career as a lacrosse player.

His business plan is to make money from health insurers, who give their customers promo codes to sign up for Careverge anonymously, in return for deductions on premiums.

Insurers receive anonymized information about their members, with the intent of reducing costs by having healthier customers. The behavioral-health-focused ValueOptions is one such client.

The trick will be getting users to buy into Careverge’s privacy and security controls. It does seem a little odd to sign up for a site at the invitation of your insurance provider, and trust that your insurance provider doesn’t get to track your participation.

Verstandig said Careverge users can opt to share some of their identifiable information with their insurer at their own discretion; for instance, one Careverge customer invited its members to opt in to get a coupon for a free flu shot.

Audax is already a sizeable company of 53 people, and is raising more funding now, Verstandig said.

Two of the 25 TechZones on the showroom floor at the Las Vegas Convention Center will be geared specifically toward digital health, with more than 171 exhibitors showcasing products as part of the Digital Health and Fitness category.

Basis B1 Band

One notable device attendees will see is the Basis B1 band, which offers an alternative to accelerometer-based fitness products. The band is a water-resistant wristband that uses multiple sensors to calculate calories burned, amount of physical activity and sleep patterns. It also sports Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) sensors that track perspiration to measure body temperature alongside ambient temperature.

In addition to showing off the B1 band at CES, Basis CEO Jef Holove said the company plans to demo a Web dashboard that works with the USB-compatible band to help users track the activity data they upload.

The cost of the Basis B1 band, which is expected to launch in early 2012, is still to be determined.

Another company, called Striiv, will showcase a $99 keychain-friendly device meant to track a user’s every movement; the idea is to motivate individuals by using activity-based games and creating challenges based on real-world distances, like crossing the Grand Canyon. The Striiv device hit the market this past October.

Among the other health-related products to be featured at the CES 2012 Sports and Fitness TechZone are waterproof MP3 players, armbands, heart monitors, high-tech goggles, GPS-enabled cameras and the integration of gesture-recognition technology into games for fitness and sports.

According to a recent survey by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the organization that runs CES, the sports and fitness category is a $70 billion annual business in the U.S. alone.

The growing mobile phone market and explosion of mobile apps has contributed to the growth of the digital health market as well. A recent ABI Research report says the market for sports and fitness apps is expected to reach $400 million by 2016, across more than one billion annual health-related app downloads.

Health care companies have also been getting into the app arena. United Health Group plans to show off mobile applications at CES 2012 for managing health care accounts, tracking prescriptions and creating health goals. Aetna already has mobile apps for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry; Blue Cross and Blue Shield introduced an app for iOS devices earlier this year.

The development of these mobile apps, as well as lightweight wearable devices such as the popular FitBit, opens up a new category of products that are less expensive — and in some cases less cumbersome — than a traditional, bulky fitness watch or a heart-rate monitor that straps around the chest. In many cases, new fitness products come with analytical Web services, and aim to go beyond the standard pedometer or accelerometer to offer a comprehensive look at activity and health.

But the marriage of health and fitness data applications with actual hardware can be a difficult one in terms of product development. Case in point: The Jawbone UP wristband.

Jawbone UP

Jawbone, a maker of slick audio products, recently made its first foray into the fitness market with the $99 dollar Jawbone UP. A few weeks after the launch of the UP, which tracks user activity and plugs directly into the iPhone to sync the data, user complaints began to trickle in. Some cited battery issues, syncing problems and poor design. The company put out an apology, instituted a no-questions-asked return policy and has temporarily halted production of the device.

Jawbone declined to comment on when the company will resume production of the UP device, but Travis Bogard, Jawbone’s Vice President of Product Management & Strategy, issued a statement saying, “The passionate response to UP has been phenomenal — and this is just the beginning. We’re extremely committed to the category and we’re going to keep improving the UP product until we realize the powerful vision of what this category can be.”

Basis’s Holove concurred that fitness devices that look to eliminate straps and wires while still performing multiple tasks can be complicated products, and said part of the reason the Basis band isn’t officially launching at CES is because the company is focused on “getting it right.”

“We don’t want to repeat any lessons learned in the industry recently. We’ve redoubled our testing plans now,” Holove said.

Holove says he believes the initial excitement over the Jawbone UP is evidence of growing consumer demand for wearable health-and-fitness devices. He also predicts that, in the near future, more corporations will begin to institute health-incentive programs, like Virgin’s HealthMiles, which could involve the mass distribution of health monitors. Through Virgin HealthMiles’s Pay-For-Prevention program, companies encourage employees to use a GoZone tracker and record their daily activities for potential rewards.

But for now, Holove says, the focus is still on marketing directly to the consumer when it comes to fitness and health. ”It’s no mystery that we need to be healthier. Health care costs are rising while health is declining, so we’re going directly to the customer and saying, here’s what you can do about that.”

MORE CES NEWS:

• Complete coverage
• HP’s Former CTO: Ultrabooks Are Nothing New, webOS Still Has Life Yet
• Walt Shows Off CES Gadgets for Fox Business News (Video)
• What Kind of Web Video Plans Does Sony Have? (Video)
• Fujitsu Seeking Way Into Crowded U.S. Smartphone Market
• Why Rhapsody Is (Probably) Bigger Than Spotify — In the U.S.
• Microsoft Beefing Up CeBit Presence Even as It Pulls Back on CES
• Inside the CES Lost & Found
• FCC Chairman Has New Tablet, but Same Script: More Spectrum!
• Verizon Wireless: We Want to Connect Five Devices for Every Subscriber
• Ultrabooks From HP and Lenovo That Are (Kinda, Sorta) Different
• Walt and Katie Take a Tour of CES (Video)
• Schmidt-Storm Alert: The Google Chairman Didn’t Like Your Question
• T-Mobile Expands Bobsled Messaging Service
• Intel Shows Just How It Plans to Get Into Phones (Video)
• Motorola CEO: We’re Going to Release Fewer Phones This Year
• Kinect Helps Keep Aging Xbox at the Top of Its Game
• More From T-Mobile CEO: On Pricing, LTE and That Ever-Elusive iPhone
• Exclusive: New Boss Acknowledges Windows Phone Still Has “Awareness Problem”
• And You Thought Jawbone UP Was Going to Miss the CES Party!
• Interview: T-Mobile CEO Says No Second AT&T Deal Out There
• Grover Is at CES and I Am Missing It
• BlueStacks Bringing Android Apps to Windows 8
• Why the Future of TV Won’t Be Here Soon
• Nvidia’s Tegra 3 Tries to Save Battery in All Sorts of Different Ways
• Dynamic Dual Coverage: Ballmer’s Last Act in Vegas and the BCS Championship in 3-D
• Microsoft Phoning In Its Last CES Keynote
• Myspace — Yes, Myspace — Says It’s Going to Sell You Web TV
• Samsung Unveils “Super” 55-Inch OLED TV
• Nokia Unveils That LTE Windows Phone It’s Been Dying to Share
• Steve Ballmer Gives Ralph De La Vega a Very … Vigorous Greeting (Video)
• Interview: AT&T’s De La Vega on LTE, Tablets and Life After T-Mobile
• AT&T’s De La Vega: Shared Data Plans Still in the Works
• LG: 55-Inch Glasses-Free 3-D Screen Is on the Way
• LG Pushes 4G Smartphone Through Verizon: The LG Spectrum
• Live: AT&T’s Vegas Act Stars LTE and, Making Her Return to the Stage, Nokia
• CES Notebook: The Constant Search for Power and Vegas’ Worst-kept Secret
• Belkin Bringing Mobile TV to Lots of Cellphones, Will Anyone Tune In?
• Acer Introduces “World’s Thinnest” Ultrabook and a “Me-Too” Cloud Service
• There Better Be Some Cool Stuff at CES, Because CE Holiday Sales Data Bytes!
• CES 2012: Snooki and Bieber Are In, Gaga Is Out!
• Coming to a Smartphone Near You: Gorilla Glass 2
• RIM Hopes Next PlayBook OS Will Impress at CES
• Ultrabooks, the Ultra-Fancy New Name for Laptops
• At CES, Expect More Gadgets Telling You to Get Off the Couch
• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
• Microsoft Pulling Out of CES After Upcoming Show
• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
• Dell Will Drop the Flashy Vegas Act for CES This Year
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In other words: UP does mean having to say you’re sorry.

Jawbone’s CEO, Hosain Rahman, said the company has found an issue with two specific capacitors in the wristband’s power system that affects the ability to hold a charge; Jawbone is also working on an issue with syncing related to the band’s hardware.

The company reassured users that the problems are performance-related and don’t pose safety risks.

If customers are unhappy with the UP, they can also receive a full refund for it — and keep the (possibly nonfunctional) one they’ve got. Jawbone said the refund program will go into effect starting tomorrow.

The Jawbone UP, a $99 wristband that monitors users’ activity and plugs directly into an iPhone to send data to an app, first hit the market a month ago and initially received positive reviews for its wearable form factor and ease of use. Within a short time, though, some customers alleged that the device wouldn’t hold a battery charge; there were also complaints about syncing issues and the fact that the cap at the end of the band falls off easily. The product is the first foray into the health-and-fitness market for Jawbone, which is known for its nifty audio products.

Full text of the Jawbone letter below:

Update from the CEO
The UP No Questions Asked Guarantee

To the UP Community:

Earlier this year, we unveiled Jawbone’s vision to help people live a healthier life with UP. We’ve been thrilled by the passionate response to this product. We heard from tens of thousands of you through emails, tweets, blog posts and on our forums about how you’re changing your lifestyle and becoming consumers of your own health. In just four weeks, UP users have collectively taken over three billion steps, gotten more than 300 years of sleep and captured hundreds of thousands of meals.

While many of you continue to enjoy the UP experience, we know that some of you have experienced issues with your UP band. Given our commitment to delivering the highest quality products, this is unacceptable and you have our deepest apologies. We’ve been working around the clock to identify the root causes and we’d like to thank everyone who has provided us with information and returned their bands to us for troubleshooting. With your help, we’ve found an issue with two specific capacitors in the power system that affects the ability to hold a charge in some of our bands. We’re also fixing an issue with syncing related to the band hardware. Typically, these issues surface within the first seven to ten days of use. The glitches are purely performance related and do not pose any safety risk.

We’ve also received helpful feedback on the application experience, including bug reports, ways to make signup and finding friends easier, user interface suggestions and new feature requests. Your comments are invaluable as we continue to improve, so please keep them coming and check back frequently for updates to ensure you’re always enjoying the latest features and enhancements.

We recognize that this product has not yet lived up to everyone’s expectations – including our own – so we’re taking action:

The UP No Questions Asked Guarantee

This means that for whatever reason, or no reason at all, you can receive a full refund for UP. This is true even if you decide to keep your UP band. We are so committed to this product that we’re offering you the option of using it for free.

The program starts December 9th and full details can be found at http://www.jawbone.com/uprefund.

For most of you, this program is simply meant to offer peace of mind. Please continue to enjoy your UP band and keep sharing your experience with us. If you encounter any problems with your UP band, contact Jawbone directly for your choice of a replacement and/or refund under this program. It’s that simple.

Jawbone remains deeply committed to addressing all issues with UP, investing in the category and giving our customers the tools to live a healthier life. We’ve temporarily paused production of UP bands and will begin taking new orders once these issues have been sorted out. In the meantime, we’ll continue to release app updates for existing users.

We regret any disappointment we’ve created for our community of users and appreciate the trust you’ve put in us. The fact that you’ve taken the time to talk with us and help us make a better product is simply phenomenal. Our customers have always been part of our team and we’re incredibly grateful for that.

Please know that we’re doing – and will continue to do – everything we can to make things right. This is just the beginning for UP and we are excited to keep improving until we realize the powerful vision of what this category can be.

If there is absolutely anything else we can do for you, please let us know.

Hosain Rahman
CEO
Jawbone

Like previous Jawbone product launches, its newest slick device, called UP — a digital wristband that tracks your health — hit the market amid high interest and positive reviews.

But, just over three weeks after its launch, it seems that some users are down on UP.

One of the complaints about UP involves the hardware and design of the device, a MotionX-powered bracelet that tracks users’ daily activity, sleep patterns and even their meals.

One major issue involves the end of the wristband — which is protected by a removable cap — that plugs directly into users’ iPhones for immediate access to the data through a Jawbone UP iOS app.

Some users are claiming that the cap falls off too easily, and have submitted multiple complaints about lost caps to Jawbone’s online forum. The cap is also designed to lie on the underside of the wrist, which some allege gets in the way for frequent laptop users.

Others are complaining that the UP device sometimes doesn’t sync with the iPhone and send the necessary data after plugging it into the smartphone.

Finally — in what might be the most critical of complaints about the UP, since it’s meant to be worn 24/7 — some users are claiming that too-quick battery drainage is an issue with their devices.

Jawbone, a San Francisco-based start-up known for its nifty audio products, such as the Jawbone wireless headset and Jambox wireless speaker, said it is aware of the issues and has been addressing them on its Web site.

In an interview, Jawbone CEO Hosain Rahman said a minority of users are affected, and that both the company and outside teams are working hard to diagnose the roots of the various problems.

He declined to say when exactly the company will have answers for its customers, except to say that they are “close” on the diagnostics results.

“We’re taking all of this technology and trying to simplify it for the user, which is a complex problem to solve,” Rahman said. “There’s waterproofing, power management, how to utilize the phone, design, a social experience and more, all in one product.”

It’s a fair point. And while it works to solve complaints, Jawbone has been shipping free replacement UP devices to dissatisfied customers. Three-packs of replacement caps are also available for $9.99.

The possible problems with UP do not seem to have affected sales. For first-time buyers, Jawbone said UP is currently back-ordered, with new orders expected to ship in one to two weeks.

But the possible device malfunctions are an unusual misstep in the company’s first foray into the health and fitness market. The UP, which costs $100, was introduced as a comprehensive solution for personal health analytics, offering both hardware and software and aimed at the same market as such products as the wearable Fitbit and the Zeo Sleep Manager.

“We do believe the issues that people are experiencing can be addressed very quickly,” Rahman said. “It’s going to be a constantly evolving product solution.”

Here is a video interview that Kara Swisher did with Rahman and Jawbone’s software head Jeremiah Robison, just before UP’s launch:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111201/complaints-pop-up-for-jawbones-up/feed/ 11 http://allthingsd.com/20111121/runkeeper-raises-10m-for-health-app-platform/ http://allthingsd.com/20111121/runkeeper-raises-10m-for-health-app-platform/#comments Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:00:41 +0000 Liz Gannes http://allthingsd.com/?p=146105 This summer, RunKeeper tried to transition from being a fitness app maker to a platform for data sharing between apps that track users’ personal health. Now it has gotten some VCs to buy into that broader vision, with $10 million in new funding from Spark Capital, OATV and Revolution Ventures.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111121/runkeeper-raises-10m-for-health-app-platform/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110405/new-iphone-app-lets-users-count-calories-without-burning-any/ http://allthingsd.com/20110405/new-iphone-app-lets-users-count-calories-without-burning-any/#comments Tue, 05 Apr 2011 19:13:02 +0000 Ina Fried http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/?p=5921 There are lots of ways to count calories, but MealSnap may be the easiest yet.

The new iPhone app allows you to take a picture of what you are about to stuff your face with, compares it with its databases and then sends back an estimate of just how many calories you are about to consume (or have consumed if you manage to down it before the result comes back). The app, from InterActiveCorp’s DailyBurn unit, costs $2.99.

Like the calorie signs at restaurants, what you learn may not be that pleasant, but some research seems to show we make better choices when armed with the information. Then again, other studies suggest that may not be the case.

DailyBurn CEO Andy Smith said he lives in New York, a place where some menus have to list calorie information.

“I know that affects my decisions,” he told Mobilized.

Smith admits that the app won’t be spot-on in estimating calories, but notes that’s not necessarily the point.

“It’s not super important to be accurate,” Smith says. “Just the act of tracking something can change behavior.”

Because it stores a record of the photos, the app can also be used as a visual food diary. The truly ambitious (or even the boldly gluttonous) can opt to share the pictures with their friends and family, using the in-app ability to upload to Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare.

“Some people like that to keep them accountable,” Smith said.

I wasn’t that ambitious, but I did want to put MealSnap through its paces. I started easy, snapping a picture of a tangerine. I didn’t want to make things too easy, so I didn’t add the optional caption. Two minutes later it guessed it was an orange and told me it was somewhere between 43 and 65 calories. Next up I sent a bowl of peanuts in the shell, including the caption. Within a minute it came back and estimated that would add up to somewhere between 149 and 224 calories (not counting whatever I burned cracking those pesky hulls). I opted to take a pass on the peanuts.

I wanted something that I could compare with an actual calorie count. In the name of science, I decided to scoop myself some light ice cream (I know, I have a rough job). I measured out exactly one cup, which the product label said should be 240 calories. I then scooped it out, snapped the picture and added a caption. MealSnap estimated my midmorning indulgence in the range of 108-162 calories.

MealSnap is only for iPhone for now, though the company hopes to do an Android app eventually. DailyBurn is still in the final beta testing for the Android version of its main app, which tracks exercise and nutrition information. Smith said the 14-person company has more iOS expertise, but is working to quickly get up to speed on Android.

“We know we’ve got to do it,” Smith said. “It’s coming soon.”

Smith said that MealSnap reflects the direction the company hopes to go, with apps that are less scientific but more fun and easy to use.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110405/new-iphone-app-lets-users-count-calories-without-burning-any/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101231/runkeeper-hopes-to-be-your-app-for-that-new-years-resolution/ http://allthingsd.com/20101231/runkeeper-hopes-to-be-your-app-for-that-new-years-resolution/#comments Fri, 31 Dec 2010 20:59:13 +0000 Liz Gannes http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=1866 FitnessKeeper, the mobile fitness app maker for the iPhone and Android, has found a variety of ways to get its users to pay to track their runs, bike rides and other activities using GPS. It offers a RunKeeper Pro app for $9.99, with premium features such as audio cues and interval training; an Elite subscription service for $19.99 per year that allows users to live-broadcast their activities and get reports on their progress; and specific training programs (usually $9.99 each for non-members).

Confused by all those options? There’s also a basic RunKeeper app that has enough tracking and reporting features for many users and has always been free. I wrote recently about its social features.

Apple recently said RunKeeper Pro was one of its top-grossing apps of 2010. FitnessKeeper, a small Boston-based start-up that just raised $1.1 million in funding, wouldn’t disclose revenue or download numbers, but said it has been cash-flow positive every month since it was founded two-and-a-half years ago.

The company announced this week it would take down one part of its pay barrier from now through the end of January, giving away RunKeeper Pro for free during New Year’s resolution season.

Launched yesterday on iPhone, that promotion has already been highly successful, with 171,000 RunKeeper Pro downloads yesterday on the iPhone, more than 10 times as many as it gets in a normal day. The app is currently quickly climbing the Apple App Store charts, now at No. 5 in the free app category (it was No. 12 this morning). The promotion is also launching on Android this afternoon.

And as of this writing, it’s only New Year’s resolution time in about half the world.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101231/runkeeper-hopes-to-be-your-app-for-that-new-years-resolution/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101201/fitbie-msn-and-rodale-launch-health-and-fitness-site/ http://allthingsd.com/20101201/fitbie-msn-and-rodale-launch-health-and-fitness-site/#comments Wed, 01 Dec 2010 09:00:02 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=37823

MSN is launching a new health and fitness site called Fitbie today, in partnership with Rodale.

It’s yet another move into niche content sites by the Microsoft portal, similar to those being made by AOL, Yahoo and Demand Media in an effort to dominate key consumer categories.

In a press release, Microsoft said Fitbie was “similar to lifestyle sites Glo.com and Wonderwall.com,” which it created with Hollywood’s BermanBraun.

Fitbie will be powered by MSN, which will sell advertising for it. Rodale is providing both original content and also material from its magazines, such as Men’s Health.

“We think we can really bring our content to a much larger audience with this partnership,” said Steve Madden, VP of Creative Services & Digital Product Development at the New York-based publisher, in an interview yesterday.

Added MSN’s Scott Moore: “The premise is to bring best of breed content about fitness and content and our distribution together.”

Here is the official press release:

Rodale Introduces Fitbie With MSN on the MSN Network

New Health Channel to Provide Free Trials for Expert Fitness, Nutrition and Weight Loss Advice Within One Comprehensive Web Destination

NEW YORK, NY, December 1, 2010–Rodale Inc., the authoritative source for health, fitness and wellness content around the world, proudly launches Fitbie [fitbie.msn.com] on the MSN network today. The latest property from Rodale’s stable of award-winning brands, Fitbie is a new health channel that will deliver original groundbreaking fitness, nutrition and weight loss content via an interactive, multimedia experience. Available on MSN.com, Fitbie is the latest addition to the MSN Lifestyle portfolio and will fuse information, inspiration and innovation in one unique web destination.

“Working with MSN to launch Fitbie is a perfect fit for Rodale,” said Steve Madden, Vice President, Creative Services & Digital Product Development. “Our mission is to improve personal health, and teaming up with a digital pioneer as respected as MSN to introduce this new property puts us squarely at the forefront of the digital health revolution.”

Said Scott Moore, Regional Partner Executive Producer for MSN at Microsoft Corp., “MSN takes great pride in relationships with leading brands like Rodale to deliver expert lifestyle content to our vast audience in compelling and engaging ways. Rodale is the authority in the health space, and we’re excited to expand our lifestyle offerings with this unique online experience.”

The Fitbie collaboration is the most recent one for MSN with Rodale, who has served as a trusted content provider for the site since 2003. As the new online health powerhouse, Fitbie capitalizes on the massive MSN audience reach and the category expertise of Rodale to provide both exclusive premium content and content from the company’s expert brands, including Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Prevention, Runner’s World and Bicycling, for customers and advertisers.

Fitbie provides advertisers with the opportunity to engage with the diet and fitness-conscious MSN audience, offering prominent ad units and deep, rich content. Advertisers will be able to directly target their specific audience in addition to leveraging the larger opportunities on MSN Health.

Similar to lifestyle sites Glo.com and Wonderwall.com, Fitbie will be powered by MSN and is accessible at fitbie.msn.com, as well as on the MSN home page and editorial programs across the MSN network. Access to Fitbie can also be found across Rodale magazines and online properties.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101201/fitbie-msn-and-rodale-launch-health-and-fitness-site/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100921/ladylike-fun-and-games-boomtown-visits-sugar-hq-for-an-update/ http://allthingsd.com/20100921/ladylike-fun-and-games-boomtown-visits-sugar-hq-for-an-update/#comments Tue, 21 Sep 2010 18:42:23 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=33974

It’s been a dog’s age since BoomTown revisited Sugar Inc., the scrappy women-focused content start-up run by Brian and Lisa Sugar.

I first paid a visit to the San Francisco headquarters of Sugar three years ago to check out the flagship PopSugar (celebs), GeekSugar (tech), CasaSugar (home) and YumSugar (food) sites.

Since then, it has moved into a range of other arenas, via acquisition, such as:

ShopStyle.com for Web commerce; FreshGuide, which makes women-aimed city guides that show off daily offers in a wide rage of arenas, such as beauty, health and fitness; and video shopping start-up Shopflick, which is now a Los Angeles-based branded entertainment unit called Sugar Digital Entertainment.

And, most recently, in mid-July, it launched a fashion game on Facebook called Retail Therapy. where you run your own fashion boutique.

While mine would be all jeans, T-shirts and Puma Mostros, it is an interesting idea from a content company, injecting into the content model doses of virality, commerce and user passion.

And, of course, Sugar has launched the requisite Apple (AAPL) iPhone and iPad apps.

Last summer, Sugar also cut its ties with NBC Universal by buying back its shares and got a Series C funding of $16 million from Sequoia Capital.

Sequoia has been an existing venture investor, having put $5 million into Sugar in late 2006. NBC invested $10 million in 2007.

And while Sugar has had serious acquisition flirtations with Yahoo (YHOO), it currently remains on the road to building a new media content company of the future from scratch.

Here’s a talk I had with Brian Sugar last week about that and more, as well as a tour of Sugar’s office.

Also below, a very funny video called “The Zoeinator,” which Sugar did for Rachel Zoe’s Zoe Report, as an example of its branded content efforts:

Enjoy:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100921/ladylike-fun-and-games-boomtown-visits-sugar-hq-for-an-update/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100901/the-icoach-apps-help-runners-go-farther-faster/ http://allthingsd.com/20100901/the-icoach-apps-help-runners-go-farther-faster/#comments Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:43:21 +0000 Nick Wingfield http://ptech.allthingsd.com/?p=1494 Before the iPhone came out, I ran with a watch that uses GPS satellite technology to keep tabs on my pace, distance and other measurements when I run.

Like a lot of runners, I’ve gotten hooked on the ability to tally up how many miles I put in on the road and to use my watch to motivate myself to run a bit farther or faster.

The Adidas miCoach

These days ordinary smartphones have GPS built into them and developers are creating apps that use the technology for tracking runs. Plus some of the apps do a lot more than a GPS watch: They can help you devise a training schedule prior to races and more actively coach you during your runs.

I spent a couple of weeks using three running apps for the iPhone—Running Method’s Run Coach Pro, FitnessKeeper’s RunKeeper Pro and Adidas’ miCoach—with the goal of seeing whether any of them could be an adequate substitute for my GPS watch, a Garmin (GRMN) Forerunner 305, which cost me $190 two years ago with a companion heart-rate monitor (the same package now sells for $153 on Amazon). (There’s a BlackBerry version of miCoach app and an Android app is in the works.)

The answer, in one case, is an emphatic yes. There are, however, some tradeoffs to running with an iPhone that might make using any running app a deal-killer for some people. First, the iPhone is a handsome device that faces a risk of disfigurement from your sweaty hands as well as from falling onto concrete so runners will want to consider buying an accessory that keeps the phone safe.

My Garmin is a giant of a watch, but at least it doesn’t require its own carrying case on a run, unlike the iPhone. Armbands for the iPhone let you easily glance at the screen while you’re working out. I ran with the iPhone tucked into a carrying pouch that came with a water-bottle belt I used on long runs. The iPhone is also a music player, which meant I could leave the iPod Shuffle at home. The iPhone’s maps feature also would have been very helpful on runs in unfamiliar places where I’ve gotten completely lost.

Revolver’s Run Coach Pro ($2.99) was the most bare-bones apps I ran with. It starts by guiding you through a few selections to develop a training plan for everything from achieving basic fitness to finishing a 50K “ultra” run. You tell the app your experience level as a runner, when any race you plan to run will occur and which day of the week you like to do your long runs—the endurance workouts that are a cornerstone of half-marathon and marathon training.

The RunKeeper Pro app helps runners record information about their runs.

The app then crafts a weekly running schedule telling you which days to run and rest on; how long to run (in time terms); and how hard to run (for example, easy or race pace). During runs, it tracks your distance, your overall pace and time elapsed.

One of the biggest drawbacks of Run Coach Pro is that you have to look at the iPhone screen while you’re running to check on your progress. That’s a big distraction if, like me, you run with your iPhone in a case on a belt.

The app could have gotten around this by using voice commands to tell me through my headphones when to go faster or slower, which would have been helpful on days when the app recommended I do interval runs, where I was supposed to vary my pace.

RunKeeper’s RunKeeper Pro ($9.99), in contrast, uses a pleasant female voice to tell you when you’re falling short of or exceeding a target pace that you establish with the app before your run. You can control how often the voice chimes in through your headphones at various time and distance intervals.

It also helps them work out smarter, right.

If you’re listening to music, RunKeeper Pro temporarily dims your tunes so you can hear the voice commands. A free version of RunKeeper lacks these voice commands.

I was most disappointed by the lack of a feature that allows you to build a training calendar for a specific race. The publisher says such a feature is coming. The app syncs all the data it collects during a workout to the RunKeeper Web site, which makes it easy to look at some basic weekly and monthly statistics your runs, but charges extra for weekly reports with other data, like average pace and calories burned.

The free miCoach app from apparel maker Adidas does all the same run tracking of the other apps, but it was the only one to really use the intelligence of the iPhone to provide decent coaching during runs.

I first set up a training calendar for a half-marathon in November through the miCoach Web site on my computer, which then synced the plan with my iPhone. It then told me to do a 12-minute “assessment workout” during which a coach instructed me to proceed from a walk to a fast pace, providing detailed instructions on how much I should be exerting myself at each interval (“conversation should be difficult”). It assessed my fitness level by judging how fast I moved into different intervals.

This step was key for helping miCoach calibrate how fast I should be going during different stages of a run. All of the instructions it gave me during runs were personalized to my fitness level based on that initial assessment run.

Adidas has also done a good job keeping all of its coaching from getting too complicated. The app and its companion Web site use a color-coded system of speed zones, from the slowest, blue, to the fastest, red, to visually illustrate how difficult an upcoming series of runs will be.

It’s worth noting that all iPhones now ship with a running app made by Nike, which I omitted from this review because it currently requires an additional $19 sensor that attaches to your running shoes to track runs. A new version of the app that uses the iPhone’s GPS is due out soon. For now, miCoach is the only iPhone app for which I would forsake my Garmin watch.

Walter S. Mossberg is on vacation. Mossberg’s Mailbox will return Sept. 16. Email Nick Wingfield at nick.wingfield@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100901/the-icoach-apps-help-runners-go-farther-faster/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100607/sugar-inc-goes-local-with-freshguide-acquisition/ http://allthingsd.com/20100607/sugar-inc-goes-local-with-freshguide-acquisition/#comments Tue, 08 Jun 2010 04:28:42 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=29157

San Francisco-based women-focused online media site Sugar Inc. has made it first significant move into the local market, by announcing its purchase of FreshGuide.

The locally focused FreshGuide makes women-aimed city guides that show off daily offers in a wide range of arenas, such as beauty, health and fitness. Another FreshGuide offering, BookFresh, does online booking for spas and salons.

FreshGuide is in four markets now: San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles and Seattle. It will continue to operate as separate brand from Sugar.

Terms of the deal were not released.

Sugar, which runs the flagship PopSugar.com site, is at an interesting juncture right now, in a space that is both competitive and fast-growing.

According to sources, in search of a cogent women’s strategy, Yahoo (YHOO) has given the start-up the once-over several times, including recently.

And a year ago, the company broke off ties with NBC Universal by buying back its shares and got a Series C funding of $16 million from Sequoia Capital.

Sequoia was an earlier venture investor, having put $5 million into the start-up in late 2006.

NBC invested $10 million in 2007. The media giant had been selling online advertising for the site, an arrangement that had previously ended.

Here’s the official press release from Sugar on the purchase:

Sugar Inc. Enters Local Editorial and Advertising Market With Acquisition of FreshGuide

Sugar Inc. Will Rapidly Accelerate FreshGuide’s Growth and Expansion with Its Large Passionate Audience of Women

San Francisco, CA (June 8, 2010)–In its first foray into providing local editorial and advertising, Sugar Inc. (SugarInc.com) today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire FreshGuide Inc., which operates FreshGuide.com and BookFresh (BookFresh.com). FreshGuide.com is an online women-focused city guide that provides access to exclusive daily offers from a well-edited selection of local businesses in beauty, health and fitness, dining, travel getaways and other relevant categories. BookFresh provides an online booking service for local businesses, such as spas and salons.

Sugar Inc. is a leading diversified women’s media company that includes PopSugar Network and PopSugar TV, producing original content and social community for women, and ShopStyle, a social shopping service that brings together the most fashionable stores and the best brands. Sugar has had rapid organic audience growth since inception four years ago and today reaches over 16M monthly unique visitors globally.

“We are constantly striving to add innovative offerings that entertain and delight our audience,” said Brian Sugar, founder and CEO of Sugar Inc. “We felt there were tremendous synergies between Sugar and FreshGuide that could be achieved by combining our large audience with their local service. We are very excited to be able to bring to our readers exclusive daily offers at the best places to eat, exercise, shop and
relax in their local areas.”

FreshGuide was founded in 2008 by Ryan Donahue, a veteran of Pay Pal, and launched its first service, BookFresh, later that year. In January 2010, the company launched Freshguide.com to provide local offers by city. Currently, FreshGuide operates in four markets: San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles and Seattle. FreshGuide will continue to operate under Sugar Inc. as a separate brand.

“FreshGuide is focused on providing exclusive, local offers for women. By integrating our service with the PopSugar Network’s addictive editorial content, we are creating a city-based editorial and offers of unmatched quality in the market,” said Donahue. “This acquisition will also allow us to dramatically expand our reach and accelerate our growth. We plan to launch FreshGuide in 30 additional cities over the next 18 months in the U.S. and internationally in the UK, France, Germany and Australia where Sugar Inc. has operations.”

Online local advertising is forecast to grow at a 19 percent annual rate over the next four years and is expected to be a $19 billion market in 2010, according to BIA Kelsey Group. Most of that growth is coming from the decline of the $120 billion traditional local advertising market.

“We believe the winning business model for next generation media companies must include diverse revenue streams. This conviction led to our acquisition of ShopStyle in 2007, which provided Sugar with a new marketing channel for retailers and brands to acquire visitors that met their ROI goals. The acquisition of ShopFlick, now PopSugar Studios, in 2009, enabled Sugar to launch PopSugar TV and provide advertisers a compelling video environment for branded entertainment. Similarly, we believe that FreshGuide will provide local advertisers the ability to advertise to Sugar;s large audience in a high-quality and cost-effective manner.

The FreshGuide service will also provide Sugar’s national advertisers and retailers with a new way to extend their brands into local markets as we develop our local city guides,” added Sugar.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100607/sugar-inc-goes-local-with-freshguide-acquisition/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20100602/steve-case-session/ http://allthingsd.com/20100602/steve-case-session/#comments Wed, 02 Jun 2010 20:56:16 +0000 Peter Kafka http://d8.allthingsd.com/?p=472

Steve Case is most famous for building America Online, which became the Internet’s first mega-company, and for merging it with Time Warner (TWX), which became the worst corporate marriage in recent history.

But AOL (AOL) is 25 years old, and the AOL-Time Warner deal is a decade old. What has Steve Case been doing since then?

Investing, in a lot of different stuff. His Revolution holding company has stakes in everything from Revolution Health, a wellness/fitness/medical advice Web site, to Cacique, a Costa Rican resort, to Clearspring, a Web widget company. Late last year, Case sold Revolution Money to American Express (AXP) for $300 million. And Zipcar, another portfolio company, has just filed for a $75 million IPO.

Liveblog

“We meet again,” sighs Kara. “I just can’t quit you.” “We’re off to a good start,” says Steve.

1:58 pm: Kara–Let’s go back 25 years. Talk about the beginning of AOL.

1:59 pm: Case–Well, Zuckerberg was one year old.

I got into this when I was in college, reading Alvin Toffler’s “The Third Wave.” It was riveting.

We started in 1985, in partnership with Commodore. It was a total bet on community. We believed the killer app was community. Chat rooms, bulletin boards, etc.

On the road show, no one believed us. Which was fair, because we didn’t have many customers seven, eight years into it. Needed lots of technology to catch up a bit. And needed people to catch up, too.

2:01 pm: Kara–What put you over the top? All of those discs?

2:02 pm: Case–It wasn’t the discs. It was the content. By 1992, ’93, many more people had computers in their homes, connectivity was better. The Internet was evolving–it wasn’t legal for us to connect to the Internet until 1991.

It took a while before we were considered an Internet company. Even when we went public, we were an interactive company, or online services. Had to morph as market evolved.

2:04 pm: And at some point News Corp. (NWS) sued you?

2:04 pm: Yeah, in 1998. they were upset about an online game they thought we were excluding. There was a lot of antitrust chatter then. Those were the good old days.

Kara: Well, you proved them wrong, the idea that you were too powerful.

Case: “I’m not going to comment on that.”

2:05 pm: On the Time Warner deal: Made sense for us and our shareholders at the time. It made strategic sense. But as Thomas Edison said, vision without execution is hallucination.

I’m recalling, by the way, that one of our strategies was to buy Apple (AAPL), hire Steve Jobs and put him in charge. It was an idea that was floated.

Big point is that with the right leadership, which my group, including me, couldn’t provide, we were set up to succeed. Look at stuff like iTunes, YouTube, etc.–all of that could have come from that company.

2:07 pm: I stepped down after the merger. After a couple of years, I started making one-off investments. Then created Revolution as a holding company. Runs through portfolio, which you can see on his site.

2:09 pm: Kara–You were early on a lot of important trends. Oh, and tell me about your favorite device that isn’t the iPad (thanks, Kara!).

2:10 pm: I’m interested in the social media side, and there’s some stuff bubbling there that reminds me of the early days. Also, mobile and location-based stuff, really. But really, how the Internet can be a platform to change the world. Even companies like Zipcar and our resorts properties only work because of the Internet.

Kara: What’s the relevance of the Internet to a company that helps rich people travel?

Case: Booking tickets on the Web [hmm]. Health care is the one that can really benefit from the Web. Runs through Revolution Health portfolio.

2:13 pm: Case–Turns out I’m much more interested in businesses that touch consumers. Like Steve Jobs said, I like that better than enterprise.

And health care is really a wellness push. Because health care as we define it is really sick care.

2:14 pm: Kara–Talk about Twitter and Sarah Silverman.

Case starts to answer, but Kara interrupts and steers him somewhere else.

Case: I really didn’t want to do a blog in the last 10 years, because that seemed like work. But Twitter made sense. I signed up early, like three years ago, but like a lot of people, it didn’t make sense to me. About a year and a half ago it made sense. Less about what you’re doing than what you’re interested in.

2:15 pm: I’ve always liked that interaction part. I wish we’d thought of Twitter–we were headed in that direction with buddy lists, etc.

2:16 pm: Kara–Tease out the different big Web businesses: Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare.

Case: Facebook’s obviously a real company with real revenue. Twitter and Foursquare are much earlier, but they could be on the cusp of a real business with real revenue.

Kara: If you were a 19-year-old college student, what would you be looking at?

Case: I’m hoping that the Internet just becomes everyday life. You don’t call it email, it’s just mail. Etc.

2:18 pm: Big opportunity for Web integration in health: Wi-Fi pedometers, Internet-connected scales, etc. In most cases, remote diagnostics would be able to help you solve and correct problems.

And I think letting people know about healthier choices can solve a lot of problems, and the Web can help with that.

2:19 pm: Kara–Make some predictions. You’re a visionary!

On Yahoo (YHOO): Case pauses. “I don’t know.” This industry changes a lot. I don’t feel like I’m in a good place to make a judgment. Do remember that iconic brands, with large audiences: You should never give up for dead. Remember what happened to Apple.

On AOL: Obviously it’s not what it was 10 years ago, which is disappointing to see. But still a lot of revenue, cash flow, visitors. A lot of assets for somebody to take forward.

On Apple: Nobody would have imagined this 13 years ago, when Steve came back. Remember that it was worth $1 billion and left for dead. By the way, I’ve told Steve this–I’d love to see Apple focus on health care.

2:22 pm: On Facebook, social networking: Really big. Not going away. That kind of communicating is fundamental to human behavior.

On Hollywood: I do think it’s puzzling. We had a hard time getting VC money into the Internet, but Time Warner would spend $1 billion a year betting on movies. They were very comfortable with that, and so many fail.

2:24 pm: Kara–How do you want to be remembered?

Case: “That sounds kind of like a gravestone question.”

Kara: “Okay.”

Case: I want to be remembered, and my team to be remembered, as mostly a force for good, able to get tens of millions of people to take the Internet seriously and integrate it into their everyday lives. We helped get America online.

2:26 pm: A question from analyst Mary Meeker: Please remind us of the market value of AOL when you went public. And please talk about challenges you had when you were growing (“America offline,” etc.)

Case: We raised $10 million or $15 million, had about $30 million in revenue and were valued at $70 million.

As to the challenges–all of them were double-edged swords. For instance, regarding downtime, it took a better part of a decade to get people to take us seriously, and we let them down. Then again, the fact that people cared about our service problems made it clear that they took what we offered them seriously. It took us a year or so to work through that.

2:29 pm: We had a lot of ups and down. Mostly downs. It was a decade of building. One of my worries now, is that there are so many companies that are built to flip. I wish people took a longer view, and I wish VCs did as well.

2:30 pm: Case: I went to school in Hawaii with Obama.

Kara: How was he?

Case: I don’t know. I was a senior and he was a freshman.

A note about our coverage: This liveblog is not an official transcript of the conversation that occurred onstage. Rather, it is a compilation of quotes, paraphrased statements and ad-lib observations written and posted to the Web as quickly as possible. It is not intended as a transcript and should not be interpreted as one.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100602/steve-case-session/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20100315/exclusive-yahoos-top-ad-money-maker-bradford-leaving-for-new-job-at-demand-media/ http://allthingsd.com/20100315/exclusive-yahoos-top-ad-money-maker-bradford-leaving-for-new-job-at-demand-media/#comments Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:15:01 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=25581

According to several sources, Yahoo’s SVP of U.S. Revenue and Market Development Joanne Bradford (pictured here) is planning on leaving the Internet giant to take a new position as chief revenue officer of online content upstart Demand Media.

The surprise move is sure to have reverberations throughout the online advertising arena, but more so at Yahoo (YHOO), where Bradford’s job encompasses a wide range of key revenue-generating duties.

She has also been tapped as one of the execs to play a key role in the recently approved search and online ad partnership with Microsoft (MSFT).

Yahoo declined to comment. BoomTown has also contacted Demand and is awaiting comment.

Bradford had actually once been a Microsoft exec, serving as VP and chief media officer of MSN Media Network. She had worked at BusinessWeek before that.

Bradford came to Yahoo in the fall of 2008, at the tail end of the tenure of Co-founder Jerry Yang, who stepped in as CEO after the previous CEO Terry Semel departed.

Immediately previous to her job at Yahoo, she had been helming national ad sales at then-trendy Los Angeles-based ad services company Spot Runner.

Demand will be her second time going from a large company to more of a start-up.

But–unlike the troubled Spot Runner where Bradford worked for only six months–Demand has been on a growth tear of late with a social media strategy that is also being pursued by AOL (AOL) and others.

It owns heavily trafficked sites, such as how-to juggernaut eHow and the health- and fitness-focused Livestrong.com, putting Demand in the list of the top 20 Web properties.

It reportedly has about $200 million in annual revenue–mostly from advertising, but also from a domain registration business–and is profitable with several hundred employees.

The Santa Monica, Calif.-based company is headed by serial entrepreneur Richard Rosenblatt (pictured here), former chairman of Intermix Media. Intermix was the parent company of MySpace, which was sold to News Corp. (NWS).

Armed with an astonishing $355 million in funding from a range of prominent investors, he has been trying to fight some mainstream media depictions of his social media content company, especially one report that called Demand a “content mill.”

Via its Demand Studios, the company uses an army of freelancers to produce all kinds of content for its sites and others, using a complex automated system, but which also includes vetting and editing.

In fact, irked at the characterization of Demand as a content spammer, Rosenblatt even issued a manifesto for Demand in January.

“There has been so much misinformation about our model and what we actually do, that I thought it was a good idea for our company and those who work for us to lay out our principles,” said Rosenblatt in an interview with me at the time. “We are so different from traditional journalism, which I have nothing but admiration for, so it was time to make people understand that.”

The role of Demand Media, said Rosenblatt, was to help readers solve problems, laugh and get good advice, while figuring out how to create a profitable media business in the digital age.

(Walt Mossberg and I have invited Rosenblatt to share the stage at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference this June, along with former Wall Street Journal editor Paul Steiger, who is trying to save investigative journalism at a nonprofit called ProPublica, to talk about it all.)

If Rosenblatt is successful, Demand appears to be aiming for an IPO or merger with another company. Ironically, Demand has also been eyed by Yahoo in the past, as a possible acquisition.

Nabbing a top Web exec like Bradford from Yahoo is obviously a definite step in raising the stakes for Demand with big, established advertisers.

That’s because Bradford is well-regarded in the industry and is a prominent player. She recently signed a high-profile deal with Hollywood producer Ben Silverman to create premium content for Yahoo.

Bradford’s departure will be seen, both internally and externally, as a definite blow to turnaround efforts by CEO Carol Bartz. Bradford currently reports to Hilary Schneider, EVP of Yahoo’s U.S unit.

My reporting does not indicate that Yahoo’s top brass know about Bradford’s expected move, so it is not clear who would replace her at the Silicon Valley icon, which has been hard hit by an exodus of talent over the last two years.

Internal candidates could include 11-year Yahoo veteran Mitch Spolan, VP of North American sales, or Seth Dallaire, a former Microsoft exec whom Bradford brought to the company last fall as VP of mid-market sales, a newly-created role responsible for all mid-market sales efforts across search and display advertising.

More to come, obviously…

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100315/exclusive-yahoos-top-ad-money-maker-bradford-leaving-for-new-job-at-demand-media/feed/ 8 http://allthingsd.com/20091103/fitbit-sees-how-you-run-walk-and-sleep/ http://allthingsd.com/20091103/fitbit-sees-how-you-run-walk-and-sleep/#comments Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:28:38 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://solution.allthingsd.com/?p=892 Everyone knows they ought to be eating well, exercising and getting enough sleep. But when they take the elevator up one flight of stairs, drive six blocks instead of walking and skimp on sleep to watch the end of the big game, it’s their little secret.

Not for long.

I’ve been testing Fitbit, a tiny $99 device with a motion-detecting sensor that, when worn, digitally records one’s distance (walking or running), calories burned and steps taken—as well as sleep patterns. The Fitbit wirelessly sends the data to its Web site, fitbit.com, for storing these minute-by-minute details. And the site has space where users add details like food and water consumption so it provides a more accurate picture of calories burned versus calories consumed.

I’ve been using Fitbit almost nonstop for the past week. I occasionally forgot to wear this lightweight tracking device because I was dog-sitting for a friend’s puppy and barely remembered to wear my shoes, much less Fitbit, as we dashed out the door for walks at 5:30 a.m. But after just a couple days of using Fitbit, I got hooked on the idea of keeping digital tabs on myself, and I liked looking back at my activity log over a period of time. I started taking the long way walking to and from my Washington, D.C., Metro stop. Rather than rolling my chair over to the printer to grab a printout, I stood up and walked the four feet over to it so I could log a few extra steps.

The idea of tracking one’s own fitness is nothing new, as anyone with an old pedometer will tell you. But Fitbit’s technology makes it easier to record and store data, and its corresponding Web site analyzes the data in relation to personal information like gender, age, weight and height. Unlike some other products, it attempts to track your body’s activity while you’re asleep and awake, rather than one or the other. For instance, the $29 Nike + iPod Sport Kit specifically monitors running or walking; the $399 Zeo Personal Sleep Coach records people’s brain waves to analyze sleep behavior.

The $99 Fitbit has a motiondetecting sensor and measures distance, calories, steps and sleep patterns.

But the Nike + iPod and Zeo offer Web components that Fitbit currently lacks. The Nike + iPod lets you upload your workout details to see how you stack up against others or to compete against friends. The Zeo, too, lets you upload your data to its Web site, where sleep patterns can be analyzed and daily coaching tips are offered.

Fitbit data is automatically transferred to Fitbit.com, but for now, this site isn’t particularly social and doesn’t offer as much in-depth personal analysis and coaching. The site doesn’t allow you to use your data to interact with a community of other users. The company says it plans to launch its online community by December, giving people a forum for anonymously comparing their data or working with a group toward a goal, like losing a certain amount of weight. And while the Fitbit.com site is free, the company is considering plans to charge a monthly fee for additional personal data analysis and coaching—a feature that may launch early next year.

At two inches high and a half-inch wide, Fitbit reminded me of the rectangular iPod Shuffle that clips onto clothing. It weighs just four-tenths of an ounce. The device also has a tiny holster for a firmer hold. I used this holster just to be on the safe side and the combination was still so small and weightless that I often forgot I was wearing Fitbit. While sleeping, I wore a Velcro wristband that held the device in place. Fitbit Inc. says the wrist is the best place to measure activity during sleep; let’s just hope you don’t dream about conducting the Vienna Philharmonic.

A button on the Fitbit shuffles through four blue screens that show calories, distance (in miles), steps, and a Tamagotchi-like flower that grows when your activity increases and shrinks when it decreases. This flower learns your behavior over time, so if you start working out heavily, it raises its standards and won’t grow as quickly.

Along with its holster and sleeping wristband, Fitbit comes with a base station—a small USB-connected stand for charging. The battery takes an hour to fully charge and lasts five to 10 days. Battery status can be checked through Fitbit.com.

First-time Fitbit setup isn’t as easy as it should be, though. Unlike some USB devices, this one doesn’t come with preloaded software, so you have to go to Fitbit.com/start to download software for the Mac or PC. This allows the plugged-in base station to act as a receiver: Whenever a Fitbit is within 15 feet of a base station plugged into a computer that’s turned on and has Fitbit software installed, its data is automatically sent to Fitbit.com in 15-minute intervals.

The device will hold seven days of minute-by-minute data and 30 days’ worth of daily data, so you don’t have to worry about losing everything if you aren’t near your base station for a while. Using the device is as simple as moving; it’s always on—there’s no on/off button. Setting the Fitbit to record sleep sessions is almost as easy: You press and hold its button for two seconds until “Start” appears; do the same until “Stop” appears when you wake in the morning.

The data that show up on Fitbit.com reflect the device’s 3-D motion-detecting sensor. Rather than simply counting your steps, Fitbit can accurately read your motion intensity and therefore sorts motion into sedentary, lightly active, fairly active and very active. Running with the dog registered as very active movement, as did my power-walking trips to the Metro. Predictably, my time spent writing this column registered as sedentary. I got up and did five minutes of jumping jacks, which were recognized on the Web site minutes later as very active movements. If you change data on Fitbit.com, like your weight, this transfers to the device so it’s calibrating as accurately as possible.

According to my sleep records, I wake up often while I sleep—11 different times in one night—but don’t remember doing so. I wanted to know more about these different sleep states, but Fitbit doesn’t analyze that sort of thing.

Fitbit.com bases its Web-site information on biomechanical studies performed by government agencies and universities over several years. It sets goals for each person according to his or her base metabolic rate, which is determined by gender, age, weight and height—all details that users can opt to enter, or not, during setup. On a typical workday, I met 80% of my calorie-burning goal and 71% of my miles-traveled goal. All of these goals can be adjusted from what Fitbit.com sets. An easy-to-read pie chart displayed my four levels of motion in color-coded percentages.

Extra activities and food consumption can be manually added, and though bookmarking tools make it easier to do this, I opted not to do this.

Fitbits began shipping at the end of September and will continue shipping to customers who pre-ordered the devices. In January, Fitbit Inc. will start delivering new orders and Fitbits will appear in retail stores.

–Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091103/fitbit-sees-how-you-run-walk-and-sleep/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20081222/web-shoppers-refuse-to-bail-out-economy-holiday-sales-down-1/ http://allthingsd.com/20081222/web-shoppers-refuse-to-bail-out-economy-holiday-sales-down-1/#comments Mon, 22 Dec 2008 13:03:17 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=2361 ComScore, the Web analytics company that has been bringing us a weekly installment of grim news about Christmas sales since November, weighs in with its newest update. Want to hazard a guess?

Yup, more of the same: Holiday sales from Nov. 1 through Dec. 19 are down one percent compared to the same period in 2007. Which is right in line with comScore’s (SCOR) prediction of flat online sales for the holiday.

If you’d like a rosier glow to these numbers, comScore tries to oblige, by noting that average online spending between Thanksgiving and Dec. 19 is actually up five percent per day. But since there are fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year compared to previous years, that won’t help retailers’ top or bottom lines.

What are people buying on Amazon (AMZN) and other electronic storefronts? Fewer flat screen TVs, ComScore says, either because promotional discounts have tapered off or because those who need a 42-inch LCD on their walls have already got one.

Meanwhile, I’m not sure what constitutes an online “Sports and Fitness” purchase, but ComScore says people have been making many more of them this year, because the category is up 31 percent. Music, movies and videos are much more familiar, and much less popular. Sales are down 24 percent, which mirrors what Best Buy (BBY) said about its brick and mortar sales for the same goods earlier this month.

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