Great products frequently inspire great parodies. Here are two of my favorites, followed by my favorite viral Nike+ video. Enjoy the lighter side of Nike+.

That’s your power song?

When I’m running, I hear music . . .

Man Boobs

Using the Nike+ website to track your runs is fast, easy, and rewarding. Go on a run, upload your data, and you’ve got immediate access to graphs, analysis, run comparisons, and more - everything a gadget runner could want. Well, maybe not everything.

There are those who take issue with the manner in which Nike displays the uploaded run information. The run graphs are pretty, but they’re not terribly accurate. The site is 100% Flash, as are the widgets that they provide for your blog (see the 400mToGo challenges page, for example). It frequently takes hours before your run data is reflected in your challenges. I could go on.

If you’re unhappy with what Nike+ provides, and you’re geeky enough (or determined enough) to strike out on your own, there are a couple of options. While Nike+ doesn’t advertise their API (correct me if I’m wrong on this one), a public API does exist. Every bit of the run data that you upload to the Nike+ site is available for retrieval, for you to do with as you will.

Runner+

An excellent example of the Nike+ API in action is Runner+, a third party website for Nike+ data analysis. While they use the same data that the Nike folks do, they present it a little differently, the biggest difference being in the way they chart your runs. Runner+ also features personal profiles, lively forums, challenges, and running groups. The team and the community over at Runner+ are a great bunch of folks. I highly recommend visiting.

If you’d rather strike out on your own, below are three options to consider.

Nike+ iPod Stats Wordpress Plugin

Mark Rickert over at ear-fung.us has whipped up the Nike+ iPod Stats WordPress plugin that will display your stats on your WordPress blog. Mark has provided excellent instructions for getting the plugin up and running, including a copy-and-paste code snippet to insert in your template for those who aren’t comfortable typing in the code themselves.

Rasmus Lerdorf’s NikePlus API

For those of you who are confident in your coding skills and want more control over the display and analysis of your data, PHP’s very own Rasmus Lerdorf put together a PHP5 implementation of the Nike+ API. Grab the code here, read his comments about Nike+, including brief comments on the API, here, and check out another write up, with an example of the SimpleXML object the code returns, here.

Eric Wroolie’s C#Nike+ API

For those who are more comfortable on the .NET side of the house, Eric Wroolie has put together an implementation of the Nike+ API in C#. Included is a discussion of the difficulties he faced in getting the code to work along and some code snippets. While the full implementation isn’t linked in the article, Eric has kindly offered to email it to anyone who requests a copy.

The Case of the Missing Run

I went out for a quick two mile run this weekend, running with my Nike+ Sport Kit as always. When I went to upload my run data, I plugged in my iPod, launched iTunes, and nothing happened. Nothing! iTunes never gave me the “Your run data has been uploaded . . .” message, and my latest run didn’t show up on the Nike+ website. I knew that the run was recorded in my iPod - I could tell by viewing the Totals data listed in the History section of the Nike+iPod menu (Nike+iPod -> History -> Totals) - but no matter what I did, I couldn’t get the run to upload.

I tried the usual tricks: Close and open iTunes, unmount and mount the iPod, relentlessly Google the symptoms. While my Google searches turned up a lot of great tips, nothing seemed to match my particular situation. Thankfully, I was able to learn enough from the troubleshooting steps to resolve my problem and upload the missing run.

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400mToGo Challenges

We’ve been showing off our private Nike+ challenges since 400mToGo went live. The invite-only challenges began well before 400mToGo was a twinkle in Scott’s eye, and it’s been a blast sharing them with you. While the invite-only challenges have been a lot of fun for our friends and family, the 400mToGo team has decided we want to spread the challenge joy. Starting this month, all of the 400mToGo challenges will be open to the public.

Challenge Categories

The monthly challenge categories are Most Miles, Fastest 1 Mile, Fastest 3K, Fastest 5K, and Fastest 10K. We’ll also be opening up our Most Miles 2008 challenge. If you think you’re up for it, head over to the Challenges page and join up!

April’s Winners

Congrats to deewiles (400mToGo’s very own Cory) for winning the Most Miles April 2008 challenge. Major kudos to derekjmorris, a running machine, who swept the remaining April challenges. Keep up the hard work, guys. Things are about to get a lot more challenging.

Usually, when I login to my Nike+ account, I view my personal challenges and the 400mToGo challenges. However, the other day I was cruising around some of the other Nike+ content and I came across the Distance Club.

Distance Club Milestones
100MI, 500MI, 1000MI, 2000MI, 3000MI, 4000MI, and 5000MI

The the basic mission of 400mToGo is to appeal to Nike+ runners of all abilities. When I came across the Distance Club, I couldn’t believe the tremendous distances that some of my fellow Nike+ runners had logged. I was especially amazed at how many people have reached the top three milestones:

Milestone: Number of Runners
3000MI: 105
4000MI: 34
5000MI: 14

User ChuckJonard, one of the 14 at the 5000MI milestone, has logged a total of 8,728.13 miles at an average pace of 19 minutes 32 seconds. What an accomplishment! I’ve definitely found my newest source of inspiration. These amazing accomplishments prove, with persistence, patience, dedication, and determination, nothing is impossible.

Since 2006, Chris Shimojima has overseen Nike’s online business. E-consultancy.com had an opportunity to sit down with Chris and ask some questions during ChannelAdvisor’s Catalyst Conference. Most interesting to me were the questions Chris answered about how Flash heavy the Nike sites are.

“There are some limitations [to Flash], absolutely. We are looking at the whole execution of it. We got a little bit too technology oriented without really thinking about the other collateral benefits or disadvantages with Flash.”

Scott and I have frequently said to each other the Nike+ site is a lot prettier than it is functional. It’s good to hear that Nike is aware of this and is considering making some changes.

You can read the whole interview here.

Loic Le Meur, a San Francisco based French blogger and entrepreneur, ran into Michael Tchao of Nike+ while in Cannes. Luis took the opportunity to interview Michael for his show Seesmic du Jour. Among other topics, Michael discusses the motivation behind the product, the social aspects of Nike+, and the Nike+ SportsBand. Enjoy.

Stuff.tv reported last week that Nike+ functionality is definitely coming to the iPhone. Mark Wilson of Stuff.tv had a sitdown with the guys in Beaverton and came back with the exciting news.

“. . . Nike+ will definitely be extending its compatibility beyond the iPod Nano to the iPhone and iPod Touch. No surprise there really, but the interesting detail is that it could also make use of both devices Wi-Fi (and, ultimately for the iPhone, 3G capability) to let you update your training log on the fly.”

While getting your news straight from Nike HQ would seem to be authoritative, there’s some suspicion at Electronista that Nike+ won’t be coming to the iPhone as soon as we might hope. The clues come from beta firmware slated for the iPhone 2.0.

“. . . earlier references to Nike+ equipment have been dropped and point to delayed or scrapped plans for integrating the sport pedometer with the phone.”

The “earlier references” line comes from comparing earlier versions of iPhone firmware to the latest beta version.

So where does this leave those of us who can’t wait to go running with a Nike+ enabled iPhone? I don’t think there’s any doubt that the iPhone will eventually support Nike+, but it may not be happening as quickly as we hope.

The majority of reports seem to contradict my conclusion. Check them out and decide for yourself.

GPS, Stereo Bluetooth & Nike+ Headed For iPhone

Nike+ on its way to iPhone and iPod touch

iPhone to Support GPS, Stereo Bluetooth, Nike+, Battle Hackers

Nike+ coming to iPhone and iPod touch

iPhone/iTouch users may get Nike+ functionality… one day

Via Chosen Apples comes news that Grantwood Technology has released a new Nike+ compatible armband they’re calling the “tuneband“. The tuneband supports all iPod nano models (one version for the 1G/2G nanos and another for the 3G nanos), provides access to all of the nano’s ports and click wheels, and comes with a cut-and-peel screen protector. The 3G version comes in multiple colors while the 1G/2G model comes only in black.

Both the tuneband and the shoe pouch are available from Grantwood Technology’s site and Amazon.com. Prices for all of the tuneband models are $12.99. You can bundle the tuneband with a shoe pouch for and extra $6. Based on early Amazon reviews, you could do a lot worse than dropping $12.99 on the new tuneband armband.

(You might recognize the Grantwood Technology name - Scott wrote about their excellent shoe pouch in “10 Different Ways to Attach a Nike+ Sensor to your Shoe.”)

One of the things that I love the most about Nike+ is the wide variety of people the product appeals to. Everyone has their own unique reasons for picking up a Nike+ sport kit, and sometimes those reasons are truly compelling. Such is the story of Courtney Benefiel of RidetoRemedy.com. Courtney was an athletic 11-year-old when she was diagnosed with diabetes.

“I had just finished the 4th grade when I got diabetes. In the 5th grade it was a struggle to participate in P.E. class once a week. When middle school and high school rolled around and other kids my age where complaining because they had to take P.E. I was crying because I couldn’t.”

While Courtney’s diabetes kept her from sports for many years, her dream of skydiving prompted her to take charge of her disease and take the necessary steps to be athletic once again.

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