Jawbone's Up Wristband

As environmental and healthy living concerns are becoming bigger issues in our generation, many companies are trying to invent creative ways to help combat obesity, lack of exercise, and laziness in general.

Recently, I came across a new and rather interesting piece of technology slowly creeping its way to the market. It is a wristband called Up, made by Jawbone. Not only is it a unique piece of jewelry, but also an iPhone app that helps track the daily activity of your life and from there give advice on healthy eating, living, and exercising.

The Up wristband has several features. First of all, it does sleep and nap tracking by intelligently tracking hours slept, light vs deep sleep, and waking moments. It does overall activity tracking 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by tracking distance, calories burned, active time, and activity intensity. Food and drink tracking makes it easier to keep track of what you eat and the calories taken in. Mood tracking logs moods and discover connections that affect how you feel. Insight engine discovers hidden connections and patterns in your day-to-day activities. When you've been sitting idle at a desk or chair for too long, the wristband gives you a gentle alert as a reminder to stay active throughout the day. The smart alarm gently wakes you up in the morning at the perfect moment in your sleeping cycle and also has a power nap function that allows for the perfect catnap (precisely 26.5 minutes) . The Up wristband has a 10 day battery so you don't miss a beating step and is waterproof to make it through life's messiest or dirtiest days. What makes this piece of technology so useful is that the jack hidden in the wristband plugs into your iPhone and loads all the data made throughout the day and puts it into a meaningful form.

The app lets the user know several things. The "Me" page, or the homepage, uses bars to represent progress towards sleep, step and food goals, and daily updates on your friends, or 'teammates'. This was the aspect of this savvy new piece of technology that I really loved. You connect with your other friends, or rather teammates, that also have the Up wristband to stay updated with their progress, or in fact their lack of progress. Say, for example, you enjoyed a 1,400-calorie Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Blizzard from Dairy Queen at 11 AM on a Wednesday. The UP wristband would of course track this and would be made available to your teammates on the app. Integrating social aspects through the app serves two purposes: to motivate you through a sense of companionship and competition, and to shame you through public humiliation. So in general, seeing your calories pile up in a public forum will make you think twice about what you are putting in your body. The app also tries to make meaningful summaries from your data, like are you getting the most sleep during the week or over the weekend? Or as the weather cools are you moving about less? Knowing this information can help you make healthier decisions or maybe break unhealthy habits.

Jawbone has come out with two 'prototypes' thus far, one last year that seemed to be a flop, and one this year that has improved on the bugs and lackings of the previous model. Only time will tell us if this new piece of 'healthy living' technology will survive in an obese-ridden America. If you asked my opinion, I believe this will start a revolution. With the integration of social and great technology, younger Americans will catch on and soon it will be the latest trend for which the older, baby-boomer generation will just remain struggling to catch on to. We can only wait and see.

Here's a picture of what the Jawbone's Up wristband looks like:

Sources:

http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/07/jawbone-up-review-2012/

https://jawbone.com/up#design

10 Most Liked Posts on Facebook

I believe it's plain and simple: people like to like. Especially me. I am a HUGE 'liker', often liking on average over 100 posts per week. However, I don't give my 'likes' out to just anyone, they have to earn it. If it's a company, I feel it has to be witty and smart, and it has to make me somewhat LOL (even though when half of the world writes 'lol' they never really laugh out loud...).

So I was navigating through a new site lately, Social Media Today, and found a great article that highlighted the 10 most liked photos on Facebook in January 2013. I'm going to start from the bottom up and give my personal opinion on each. I will then say if it is worthy of my like. Refer to the link at the end for the article.

10. BMW comes in last with 125,274 likes. To me this is a manly post, but I can appreciate it because of the quality of this car. Nothing is better than a company openly revealing their new products on social media for the world to get the first look at! Still not sure if it would receive a like from me.

9. Intel comes in at 9 with 131,179 likes, even though I think this photo is ABSOLUTELY GENIUS! What a great way to artistically illustrate the characteristics of our generation; technology is truly driving us in this crazy busy life that will never stop spinning. This by far was my favorite post on the list. In fact, I'm going to start following Intel and this would definitely receive my like! Definitely relevant to today and the company. Kudos to Intel!

8. Tiffany & Co received 136,242 likes with this photo, obviously very relevant since Valentine's Day is around the corner. Although the picture is beautiful and visually appealing, it doesn't have anything that really catches me. It just seems like another beautiful piece of jewelry I could never afford... not 'like worthy' for me.

7. Oreo has been recently hitting the ball out of the park with 141,044 likes for this hilarious photo. I, personally, have always struggled with this problem and its cute how they have utilized the 'meme' phenomenon in relation to their product. In fact, this post actually made me laugh out loud in the library, so definitely deserving of a like!

6. As always Starbucks does well with 155,816 likes on this trendy hipster photo. I like this photo because it shows soul and that the company is not forgetting where they came from. I 'like' and appreciate that.

5. Not too sure why Walmart received 156,069 likes for this post, completely irrelevant! Like we talked about in class, nothing is worse than companies who push out random content that is in no way relevant to their company. Some can pull it off, but to me, Walmart is not one of them. Don't get me wrong, the photo is cute, but it would never receive a like from me.

4. We've seen these 'please give me and my cute siblings likes for (fill in the blank)' before, but it's quickly getting old! The first one was cute, but how many times are people going to do this and expect likes?? There's a certain point when this idea just isn't original any more. Sorry, not worthy of a like. I never got a dog either :(

3. Am I missing something about this post? Louis Vuitton received 163,091 likes, putting it at the number 3 position on the list. It mentions a 'Monogram Story', but the picture doesn't necessarily illustrate anything about monograms. What is the 'Louis Vuitton Friends of the House'? Maybe I'm out of the loop on this one since I'm not a fan of designer purses, but personally, this just seems like a generic ad for me. Sorry Louis, no like for you!

2. Yet another manly post, WWE comes in at number 2 with 247,415 likes for just one photo! That's pretty impressive, and I have to give it up to the Rock for accomplishing both his World Championship and his 'Likeship". However, the amount of links and CAPS LOCK is too busy of a look for me. Considering I am completely out of their demographic, I highly doubt I would give this one a like. I have respect for the Rock though!

1. Nothing is better than being reminded of your childhood glory days with Disney. This classic photo came in first with 327,817 likes. It's nice to have something like this come up on your news feed that reminds you that life shouldn't get you down. Take the 'problem-free philosophy' into account and enjoy the life that you have. I think this would get a like out of me, especially on those days that I am down in the dumps.

So there you have it, the 10 most liked posts on Facebook for January 2013. Some are great examples of Social Media Marketing and some are complete flops that make me question how they even made it on the list. For me personally, my number one would be Intel and my number two would be Oreo. Both did a great job in being relevant and not being pushy in their content. Neither one of them were trying to sell you anything and just wanted to create a post that was either humorous or inspiring, both of which I appreciate greatly. 

All pictures and rankings were made available by Social Media Today.

Citation:

Arnold, Morgan J. "10 Most Liked Posts on Facebook." Social Media Today RSS. Social Media Today    LLC, 6 Feb. 2013. Web. 07 Feb. 2013. .