The last two years have been a whirlwind for us, as we have been rolling out new features as quickly as possible to support our rapidly growing community. The further we get down this path, the bigger the product roadmap keeps getting, filled with all of the new functionality that we plan to add as the RunKeeper system continues to grow.
It became clear to us that, in order to provide a solid foundation from which to build significant new functionality, the site needed to be revamped to support these next phases of growth. This was a massive undertaking that we nicknamed ‘Kronos’ internally, and I know everyone must be getting sick of hearing about it by now. We’ve been busy in the last month rolling out behind-the-scenes updates, and we are excited to announce that the first user-facing aspects of Kronos are now live!
Here are some of the changes you can expect to see as of today:
Creating an account
If you have friends that have been eager to join RunKeeper but do not have an iPhone or Android phone, now they can! Until recently, the site was only geared towards users of the RunKeeper iPhone & Android apps. With the launch of Kronos, the site is now much friendlier for users who wish to track their fitness manually on the web.
UI improvements
Cleaner, slicker look & feel, better usability, and a bunch of little subtleties for a nicer overall experience.
Speed/elevation chart improvements
The speed/elevation chart below the map on the website is no longer a Flash chart, we have moved it to JavaScript. This means that you can now view it on your mobile device or iPad without issue. By popular request, we also added ‘time’ to the speed/elevation chart so you can see how much time had elapsed in your activity at any point on the chart.
RunKeeper Elite
In order to simplify our premium offerings, we are changing the name of the optional subscription service on the web to RunKeeper Elite. RunKeeper Elite will be comprised of both FitnessReports (web-based analytics) and RunKeeper Live (broadcast your runs live on the web as you do them), as well as some other new Elite offerings that we will be rolling out soon.
FitnessReports
There are also some nice changes to the FitnessReports charts. The ‘total distance’ chart is still free, but is now found under FitnessReports, so all charts are in the same place. All other FitnessReports charts are part of the optional premium subscription service (see RunKeeper Elite above). We added additional customization by day/week/month/year, sorting by specific activity type, and also added weight, body fat %, and heart rate charts. If you don’t have a Withings scale already, which can send your weight automatically to RunKeeper, it may be time to take a look 
Support Forum
As we’ve grown, the original open source forum we started with has become insufficient for our increasing needs. As a result, we have implemented a new support forum that should provide a much more scalable solution. You can get to it by hitting the ‘support’ button at the top of the RunKeeper.com website. This forum has single sign-on (you can now user your RunKeeper email/password, no separate registration required), much better search capabilities, and better management tools for the RK team so we can provide more effective support.
Overall, we believe the new website and all of the new features will make for a much better RunKeeper experience. It is also foundational, in that it will serve as a building block for all of the new functionality that we have coming. I’ll set expectations now, you can expect a steady stream of significant new functionality rolling out in the coming weeks and months. On iPhone. On Android. And on the web.
Stay tuned! And as always, please please let us know what you think!
Jason
Two for Tues. . . errr, Wednesday!
