Bill Day: Please tell us about yourself and your company.

Arel English: Fitness has always been a really important part of my life and is something I struggled with as a kid. In college, first as an athlete and later as a coach, I learned the importance of strength training for health and fitness and achieving meaningful results. The problem is that strength training is really complicated and intimidating, so we created Vitogo to make strength training easy and fun.

BD: What is the “elevator pitch” for why someone should use your app?

AE: Strength training is a really important part of a healthy lifestyle. Not only does it help you look better, it’s also an important part of weight loss, reducing your risk of injury, and increasing bone density. The problem is knowing how to strength train effectively. Vitogo makes it simple. Just like a personal trainer, Vitogo assesses your fitness level and goals to give you a tailored workout program that evolves with you. It coaches you through every step of your workout, tracks your progress, and keeps you motivated with the support of your friends, other users, and rewards.

BD: How did you get started using the Health Graph API?

AE: As an avid RunKeeper user before the idea for Vitogo even existed, I used to complain that my strength training workouts didn’t count toward anything on my RunKeeper account, so when we decided to build Vitogo, the first thing we wanted to do was look into how we could have our workouts post to RunKeeper so we could get credit for all our hard work. At the time, the Health Graph API hadn’t been announced, so we were pretty excited to learn about it when we first reached out to RunKeeper about the possibility of integrating Vitogo.

BD: How is using the Health Graph benefiting your business?

AE: The Health Graph is a great way to aggregate everything active we’re doing online. Just like how Facebook made it easy for new services to seamlessly share information socially across the web, the Health Graph has made it really easy to seamlessly share healthy activity. Sharing healthy activity and being able to aggregate it and see the big picture makes Vitogo that much better a product, and is something we are really excited about!

BD: Which portions of the Health Graph API do you use, and why?

AE: Right now we’re just publishing to the Fitness Feed and pulling Vitogo users’ RunKeeper activities. We want to quickly expand to sending calories burned and strength training statistics to the Health Graph so our users can get a more integrated experience.

BD: What do you like about the Health Graph? What would you like to see changed?

AE: Being able to fully integrate Vitogo, a heart rate monitor, a swimming tracker, and tons of other stuff that I use to track my activities is hugely powerful, that’s what I love about the Health Graph. I’m looking forward to being able to see exactly what each service is going to publish to RunKeeper, and pull from RunKeeper, so I know for example if Vitogo is going to update my total number of calories burned, and number of activities done that month.

BD: If you could request any new feature from the Health Graph, what would it be? How would you use it?

AE: Having the ability to control how individual apps post to the fitness feed would be an awesome extension of the Health Graph. We would like Vitogo to be able to post simple stories about a user’s strength training workout with the same type of control you have when deciding how your app posts to Facebook or Twitter.

BD: Can you share any future plans for your app? What’s coming next that your users will be excited about? Does the Health Graph play a role in that, and if so, how?

AE: We are really excited about getting users using Vitogo and giving us feedback on what they love, and what we can do better. We want to make sure that everyone using Vitogo feels confident and in control at the gym. We’re also going to continue to improve our Health Graph integration so our users get the best total picture of their fitness.

BD: Is there anything else we should know about you or your application?

AE: Vitogo is an iPhone/ iPod Touch app and a website! Using Vitogo.com is as much a part of the experience as using the app!

Cross-posted from the Health Graph blog.

Watch this the next time you need reminding that anything is possible!

Bill Day: Please tell us about yourself and your company.

Rick Wenner: My background is as a fitness educator and I have spent the last decade instructing thousands of fitness professionals and consumers on how to properly maintain a healthy lifestyle. I have always seen technology as a crucial tool in expanding the possibilities and opportunities within the fitness industry. I have dedicated much of my professional career to developing award winning fitness products. I am now the Category Manager for Health and Fitness at Scosche Industries where I focus on promoting and developing Scosche’s line of Health and Fitness products.

BD: What is the “elevator pitch” for why someone should use myTREK?

RW: The Scosche myTREK is a wireless pulse monitor that is worn on your forearm as opposed to a traditional chest strap. Paired with the Scosche myTREK app, you can manage your pulse, training type, calories burned, distance/speed/pace and more. Scosche myTREK also allows you to control your music while you work out with the integrated buttons on the armband; volume up/down, play/pause and previous/next track.

BD: How did you get started using the Health Graph API?

RW: We realized that RunKeeper had a great platform for individuals tracking and sharing their health metrics with like-minded consumers. Once we launched we saw that quite a few of our users wanted to have the ability to share their myTREK workouts on RunKeeper’s Health Graph.

BD: How is using the Health Graph benefiting your business?

RW: Consumers began noticing our team’s posts during our beta testing and started asking how they could link their myTREK to the Health Graph. Since then, we have had great feedback from our existing customers, who were hoping that they would see this partnership. We are also seeing an increase in app downloads and myTREK purchases.

BD: Which portion of the Health Graph API do you use, and why?

RW: We are currently using the Fitness Activities portion of the Health Graph API. We use this to allow users’ myTREK activities to be continually monitored.

BD: What do you like about the Health Graph?

RW: The Health Graph is a great tool for enabling individuals to track their progress in one or more aspects of their fitness journey. This type of constant feedback shows the individual their end result; this can either be rewarding or show them that they need to modify their workouts to see the desired results.

BD: If you could request any new feature from the Health Graph, what would it be? How would you use it?

RW: The Scosche myTREK app allows users to name their workouts. It would be great if the Health Graph could recognize what the user named the workout and track it accordingly. Currently the only way to define the workout is via the notes section.

BD: Can you share any future plans for myTREK and related Scosche products? What’s coming next that your users will be excited about?

RW: Scosche has big plans for the Health and Fitness Category; however, we are not at liberty to divulge them at this time. What I can say is that we will be launching an Android app in the very near future.

BD: Is there anything else we should know about you, Scosche, or myTREK?

RW: We are focused on creating a complete exercise experience; an experience which motivates, guides and entertains by seamlessly incorporating music, social media, and all that connects you to the world. Scosche’s award winning myTREK app and hardware are a glimpse of the great things that are still to come from the Scosche Health and Fitness Category.

Cross-posted from the Health Graph blog.

Click here or watch the embedded video below.

Bill Day: Please tell us about yourself and your company.

Benjamin Young: I’ve been managing and delivering business and information technology solutions for the last twelve years. I love working on things that allow me to blend my creativity and entrepreneurial passion. I’ve worked in software development, product management executive positions and co-founded C.Y. Strategy, a boutique strategy and management-consulting firm focused on providing advisory services to early and mid-stage ventures. I’ve also worked on voice application systems and managed research in unstructured data analytics.

My latest venture, Nexercise aims to tackle obesity in America by turning fitness into a fun and interactive game. I originally conceived of the idea from personal frustrations with maintaining my weight while simultaneously working, going to school, and raising two children. Since the beta launch of Nexercise in August, the game has already grown to over 35,000 users.

BD: What is the “elevator pitch” for why someone should use Nexercise?

BY: Nexercise makes fitness FUN. It’s a new and exciting way to get motivated, lose weight, and stay in shape. You can play with friends, earn rewards, defeat challenges, and track your progress on the largest fitness mobile interactive game of its kind.

BD: How did you get started using the Health Graph API?

BY: We reached out to RunKeeper and you were extremely helpful. Your team pointed us to some great resources, including an open source iOS project in Github that enabled us to speed up our development time. [Editor's note: Our Health Graph libraries page links to that and other third party libraries, wrappers, and related tools.]

BD: How is using the Health Graph benefiting your business?

BY: The Health Graph adds a new level of analytics and tracking for our users. Nexercise is great at making a motivational game experience and collecting data from a user’s workouts. We did not, however, build out a set of tools to give the user detailed insight on more “quantified-self” metrics like the capabilities RunKeeper provides. The integration was a perfect fit on capabilities! We make fitness fun and RunKeeper makes fitness and health data insightful.

BD: Which portions of the Health Graph API do you use, and why?

BY: Currently we allow users to link to the Health Graph and post their activities. This will enable them to get more insight into their fitness activities.

BD: What do you like about the Health Graph? What would you like to see changed?

BY: We like the simplicity and ease of use. We’d like to see a full iOS SDK to speed up integration.

BD: If you could request any new feature from the Health Graph, what would it be? How would you use it?

BY: We would love to see extended capabilities like interest discovery: You would recommend other users to connect, based on fitness level, location, interests, and activities.

BD: Can you share any future plans for your app? What’s coming next that your users will be excited about? Does the Health Graph play a role in that, and if so, how?

BY: We plan to expand functionality to provide Health Graph API users with additional customized game experiences based on their information. Additionally we will eventually allow users to get credit (experience points, virtual medals, and rewards) for activities not recorded using the Nexercise app.

BD: Is there anything else we should know about you or your application?

BY: Yes. It’s currently available on the Apple App Store. We will be coming to Android soon, so if you have an Android phone please sign up for early access by clicking here.

Cross-posted from the Health Graph blog.

Bill Day: Please tell us about yourself and your company.

Mark Kelsey: I am a doctor by profession and an amateur self taught programmer. I have developed a number of web applications and software packages which we use within my medical practice and I now also work for a software company which develops clinical decision support software. Work on my Health Graph app OS RouteMapper is therefore a bit of a sideline at the moment, though with my medical background I have lots of ideas for how the Health Graph API could be used to help people manage their medical conditions.

BD: What’s the “elevator pitch” for why someone should use your app?

MK: OS RouteMapper allows people to view their Runkeeper activities on Ordnance Survey maps within the UK. These maps are world renowned for being very detailed and in particular provide excellent detail off road. They are therefore particularly useful for walkers, cyclists or runners who don’t stick to roads! Outside the UK, the app uses OpenStreetMaps Cycle Maps which in many areas are much more detailed than Google maps, again particularly useful off road.

BD: How did you get started using the Health Graph API?

MK: After using Runkeeper to track my cycling activities, I wanted to view my activities on more detailed maps so I could see where I’d been (I’m often cycling at night along dark tracks!) and plan where else to ride.

Before the Health Graph API was released, I developed a web site that would allow me to upload GPX files to show on an OS Map. When the Health Graph API was released it was a natural development to automatically get the activities off Runkeeper. I was surprised by how many people started using the app when I published it and when I saw that people from other countries were using it I added the support for OpenStreetMaps Cycle Maps. After seeing how easy it was to integrate with the Health Graph API, I have thought of lots of other ideas about how the data could be used in different ways.

BD: How has using the Health Graph benefited you?

MK: At the moment this is just a sideline for me but I think some of the ideas I have may have even greater appeal to lots of people and may become a commercial opportunity.

BD: Which portions of the Health Graph API do you use, and why?

MK: I mainly use the activities feed and in particular the path of each activity is used to plot the route on the map. The street team feed is also used to enable users to view street team members’ activities on the maps.

BD: What do you like about the Health Graph? What would you like to see changed?

MK: It is very easy to integrate with the Health Graph and the documentation is very clear, even for an amateur programmer like me! One addition I would appreciate is the ability to view the user’s saved routes as this is currently not available. I would also like to develop the ability for users to plan routes using my maps and save them back to the Runkeeper / HealthGraph site as a route.

BD: If you could request any crazy new feature from the Health Graph, what would it be? How would you use it?

MK: With my background as a doctor, I would really love to see some integration with clinical systems and devices so that users can see data (e.g. blood glucose measurements, BP readings, Weight readings etc.) that their doctor has on the clinical system, and they can see the effect of their exercise on their medical conditions. This could extend to things like blood glucose monitors so patients can automatically upload data. I think this kind of thing could really help telemedicine develop in the future.

BD: Can you share any future plans for your app? What’s coming next that your users will be excited about? Does the Health Graph play a role in that, and if so, how?

MK: In the immediate future, I am developing a way for users to compare their performance over parts of their routes i.e. split times, so that even if they don’t follow exactly the same route twice, they can compare their performance over the parts of the route that are the same. As stated above I have a number of other ideas that I think would work well with the Health Graph and build on it. I am hoping to develop these.

BD: Is there anything else we should know about you or your application?

MK: You can follow future developments on Twitter at @osroutemapper!

Cross-posted from the Health Graph blog.

Bill Day: Please tell us about yourself and IronApp.

Tyson Miller: Being an Ironman triathlete and a web entrepreneur for many years, I always wondered why there weren’t any real social networks for triathletes, particularly focusing on the half and iron distances. It’s because of this that we built IronApp over the past year. We launched in December 2010 with a pretty simple app and have grown to around 50,000 athletes over the past year.

BD: Why would someone use IronApp?

TM: IronApp enables triathletes to keep a race portfolio and see which people on Facebook are doing these races. This hasn’t been done on Facebook before. In addition to this, athletes can also train with their Facebook friends and see which friend is training the most. Lastly, we have groups for each race on our app and athletes doing the same races can easily share information within these groups.

BD: How did you get started using the Health Graph API?

TM: I have been using RunKeeper for quite a while and I think it’s a great product. I always knew that within RunKeeper’s large user-base there were probably a lot of triathletes that would love to interact with other triathletes registered for the same races. Our users were also looking for the perfect tool to track their training while still using our app. When the Health Graph API was launched we knew that it would be great for us.

BD: How has using the Health Graph benefited your business?

TM: In addition to increasing the value of our offering, the Health Graph has gotten our app a large amount of exposure. This exposure has been invaluable to us.

BD: Which portions of the Health Graph API do you use, and why?

TM: Currently we are pulling training data from the API and tying it to our athletes’ upcoming triathlons. This enables users signed up for the same races to see each other’s training and how it’s progressing. This is very helpful for our athletes, particularly when training for long Ironman races.

BD: What do you like about the Health Graph? What would you like to see changed?

TM: So far everything has been great…off the top of my head there is nothing else that we would need!

BD: If you could request any crazy new feature from the Health Graph, what would it be? How would you use it?

TM: We are really interested in getting real-time location data and seeing what can be done with done with that. I think it would be great if some of our triathletes could be notified if another IronApp-using triathlete that was participating in the same race was nearby.

BD: Can you share any future plans for your app? What’s coming next that your users will be excited about? Does the Health Graph play a role in that, and if so, how?

TM: We are currently coming up with a game plan for the future and we definitely see the Health Graph as a part of that. Training sessions and training data will be further integrated into IronApp and for that we will continue to utilize the Health Graph API. Spatial data might also have a place in our app in the future!

BD: Is there anything else we should know about you or your application?
TM: Our mission is to provide the best app for triathletes online and we are going to continue to work very hard to fulfill that mission. We look forward to continuing to work alongside RunKeeper with the Health Graph API.

Cross-posted from the Health Graph blog.

Bill Day: What do you do for Limeade?

Erick Rivas: I’m CTO and VP of Product Development at Limeade.

BD: How does your work at Limeade help corporations and their people?

ER: People spend a lot of time at work. And, habits at work — what you eat, how active you are, how you manage stress, etc. — have a huge effect on health and happiness. We help reinforce and change company culture in ways that promote health, happiness and productivity.

BD: That is a fantastic mission! How do you take advantage of the Health Graph API in your work?

ER: There is a lot of innovation going on in the area of fitness devices and apps. Users want to leverage best-in-class fitness devices and apps they already use and have that activity automatically count towards the rewards and incentives that are part of their company’s worksite wellness program.

For example, I took my daughter for a trick-or-treating “walk” of 3 miles around our neighborhood last night using RunKeeper and this morning, via our Health Graph integration, I automatically got 1 point for that as part of the walking challenge that I am participating in at Limeade. Employees can receive health insurance premium deductions, Amazon.com Gift Cards, be entered into a raffle for an iPad, and so on when certain points thresholds are met.

BD: How do you see this partnership with RunKeeper benefiting individual employees at the companies you’re working with?

ER: Our integration via the Health Graph API gives RunKeeper users a way to connect with others at their company in a social context. It gives Limeade users a fun way to track their physical activity using the fitness app or device of their choice.

BD: When a user starts using RunKeeper capabilities via the Health Graph integration in Limeade, what specifically happens behind the scenes?

ER: Upon authorization by the user (using OAuth), we are downloading/syncing with all Fitness Activity types and associated units (miles, calories, minutes) that are supported by the Health Graph API.

BD: Any thoughts on the overall strategy we’re taking with the Health Graph and the developer community?

ER: I really like the vision and direction of the Health Graph in providing an open way for users to store, manage and share historical health data from multiple providers.

BD: If you could request any new feature from the Health Graph, what would it be? How would you use it?

ER: I’d like to be able to distinguish between activities that were recorded by a device versus self-reported activities in the activity feed that is returned from the Health Graph API without having to parse through the GPS data.

Also, I’d like to be able know what the source of the device data is in cases where the user is not using the RunKeeper app (say they were using a partner device from Fitbit, Polar or Garmin). That way, we could not only show that you had (say) burned 10,000 calories in the last two weeks as part of your company’s Biggest Loser weight maintenance challenge, but also break that down by type of device.

BD: Thanks for the suggestions and requests, we appreciate them very much. What’s next for Limeade and your use of the Health Graph?

ER: We follow an Agile Development approach at Limeade and as a result we are deploying product improvements once a month.

In the near term, we will be improving the visualization of self-improvement information (activity, biometrics) and social features on the site.

Pulling additional data types that are stored in the Health Graph outside of physical/fitness activities (nutrition, weight, blood glucose levels, etc.) is something we will be supporting as well.

BD: Is there anything else we should know about you and your customers’ use of Limeade?

ER: I trust that a lot of Limeade users will be excited about the integration with RunKeeper and the Health Graph API. And I look forward to feedback on ways that we can make it even better!

Cross-posted from RunKeeper‘s Health Graph developer blog.

Bill Day: Please tell us about yourself and your company.

Geoff Pitfield: We’re currently an angel-backed team of two. I’ve been making mobile stuff since the days when that meant doing your own hardware, and have been working on Fleetly since early 2010. I’m a Product Design grad and MBA, but I’d never really coded so I taught myself in order to build Fleetly, which has certainly been interesting. Fleetly’s the first app that lets you check in on your fitness and evaluate your overall Fitness Level, based on all the exercise that you do, from weight training to long distance running. I got started on the app when I couldn’t find anything fun to use that supported the variety of activities I was doing to train for a triathlon.

BD: What’s the “elevator pitch” for why someone should use your app?

GP: It’s a fun, social way to stay motivated about your fitness *and* get meaningful insight into what you’re doing. When it clicks for people, they end up doing things like an extra 20 pushups or running another mile just to pass their friend on the leaderboard. That’s a great thing.

BD: How did you get started using the Health Graph API?

GP: Our users started vigorously and repeatedly demanding RunKeeper integration!

BD: How will using the Health Graph benefit your business?

GP: We think it will both increase our user base and increase retention, because Health Graph integration makes it much easier for people to use – they no longer have to enter their data into multiple applications.

BD: Which portions of the Health Graph API do you use, and why?

GP: We use the Fitness Activity API, because that’s the part that fits in with what we’re doing, as well as being what our users demanded. We might add weight tracking at some point as well.

BD: What do you like about the Health Graph? What would you like to see changed?

GP: It’s fairly easy to use and is comprehensive. It would benefit from better delete tracking, and should also support an identifier for originating source on entries. Otherwise, you run into problems if someone has cross-linked multiple services. For instance, we already integrate with Health Graph partner Withings (@withings). If someone’s linked their Withings account to the Health Graph, there really should be a way to tell that a given weight entry originated as Withings ID XYZ to avoid duplication. (Editor’s note: De-duplication today falls on the app developer.)

BD: If you could request any new feature from the Health Graph, what would it be? How would you use it?

GP: Off the top of my head, I’d rather see continued focus on making the API as robust, useable, and open a platform as possible. I don’t have any blindingly great feature ideas, per se, other than what I mentioned above which I think is really important. A push update service would be nice to reduce the need for polling.

BD: Can you share any future plans for your app? What’s coming next that your users will be excited about? Does the Health Graph play a role in that, and if so, how?

GP: The really cool stuff has to remain secret. We’ll soon be introducing some new types of challenges that we think are going to be great, and very much focused on the same Fitness Activities we’re linking via the Health Graph. Also, we’ve always had our own little API but never done much to promote it, and we’re eager to help anyone who’s interested. The second most requested thing after RunKeeper is an Android app if anyone wants to play!

BD: Is there anything else we should know about you or your application?

GP: We’ve been doing a cool challenge with Lifehacker (click to access), and also have a badly under-promoted startup challenge (click here for startup challenge), both of which might be of interest. And the app’s available at www.fleetly.com/ios, so check it out!

Cross-posted from RunKeeper‘s Health Graph developer blog.