What We Can Learn From the NYC Marathon iPhone/iPad App

Last Sunday, I had the opportunity to see in-person the largest marathon in the world, estimated to have more than two million spectators and 315 million television viewers across the globe. Watching the 45,000 participants in the 41st annual ING New York City Marathon make the 26.2 mile journey was truly an inspirational experience! A new iPhone/iPad app offered by the Marathon this year certainly added to the experience. Though the Marathon is quite different from a trade or consumer show, the following comments on this app certainly apply to show producers considering an app.

I downloaded the NYC Marathon app the day before the race. I already have an iTunes Store account so this was a very easy process. Though the app was free, you could also upgrade to the premium package for $3.99 which enabled you to get “LIVE VIDEO of the race and REAL-TIME Tracking of up to 5 of your friends (with in-app upgrade)” as it stated on iTunes Store Web site.

The app was visually engaging, simple to use and offered several valuable features. Through the app, you could watch numerous Marathon videos. You could get real-time news alerts on the Marathon, follow the real-time Twitter feed and see plenty of photos. The app enabled you to keep track of the Marathon leaders (and friends if you upgraded) by getting real-time updates on pace and expected finish time, and visually following them in real-time through icons moving across a map of the Marathon route overlaid on a Google map of the area.

The map feature was compelling. It was fun to use, and instead of guessing when the leaders or your friends were approaching your location, you could simply look on the map. The “utility value” of the tracking feature was the key driver of my decision to pay for the upgrade. Keep this concept of utility value in mind as you develop an app for your show.

Leveraging unique radio frequency identification (RFID) tags given to each participant, ultra-high frequency radio antennas on the Marathon course that read these tags and computers to analyze the data being collected, this tracking feature was certainly cutting-edge. It would have been great if it worked as it was supposed to. Unfortunately, the premium (paid) tracking feature which enabled you to follow your friends had problems. It was a frustrating experience. Without getting into all of the details, I will simply share with you one of the app reviews titled “Refund” on the iTunes Store web site that sums it up well, “…I was eating a burger after the race and it still said I had 12 miles to go.”

Certainly, from reading the reviews, it appears the premium tracking worked for some people, but based on my own experience, the many bad reviews on the iTunes Store web site—several much stronger than the one above—and the overall rating for this app of two stars (based on a five-star scale with five being the highest) at the time I wrote this post, there were clearly problems here. I encourage you to visit the iTunes Store, and read some of the reviews for yourself. If you are going to launch an app for your show, especially if you are going to charge for a premium feature, you should make sure it is ready for “prime time.”

In closing this week’s post, I would like to give credit to Apple. Within 12 hours after submitting a note on the problem I had with this app on the iTunes Store web site, they issued a full refund, and indicated they would look into the problem. Excellent customer service! FYI, if you are not familiar with the app ecosystem, the app itself was not developed by Apple but rather by a third party and sold through the iTunes Store.

Posted on November 11, 2010