IronApp: Connecting triathletes via the Health Graph and Facebook

This week we turn our Health Graph partner profile gaze upon IronApp (@ironapp), the “Home for Triathletes on Facebook”. Learn how founder Tyson Miller (@tysonmiller) enriches IronApp’s community of triathletes using the Health Graph (@healthgraphapi).

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.

Bill Day (@billday) is Platform Evangelist for RunKeeper where he helps developers learn about and use the Health Graph.