To Do List

gtFtr is a work in progress... so this list will probably be fairly fluid for quite a while yet ;)

The order is not significant and priorities will certainly shift based on user uptake and development support.

Core Engine
This stuff is what makes the basic system work. It's pretty crucial to making it a viable, stable platform so should (in most cases) be considered priority #1. That said, cool and fun features may well appear before some of the things on this list

  • Additional trackers
  • Timeline on graphs (midnight each day?)
  • Show the comments for each data point (either hovering next to the data point or at a fixed location)
  • Show multiple graphs (measures) concurrently (eg calories and heart-rate and level)
  • Make graphing function Ajax style, so measures can be turned on/off as a simple toggle (no need to refresh page)
  • Enable Filters (eg FB and CB in Elliptical) on the graph display
  • Improve robustness and error handling in parser including handling missed spaces (eg "run 12miles”)
  • Support multiple words in a measure (eg “run 12 miles route Windy Hill Loop”) 
  • Allow users to replace an incorrect tweet with correct information (eg "@gtFtr replace 1234567 Situps 4 sets 15 reps" where 1234567 was the original tweet id). Time should be kept as per the original posting, unless overridden on the new tweet as well, and of course we need to check that a user is correcting their own tweet!
  • Create TinyURL style shortcuts so people can link to a specific graph
  • Move the parser script off the website and onto a back-end process
  • Expose the tracker data as an XML (or similar) feed

Extended Engine
These are add-ons that extend the reach and "goodness" of the platform. Maybe they allow us to better support the target users, or reach out to other niche users - either way they are things that increase the value to the user.

  • Allow a specific graph to be embedded in a blog
  • Allow a specific graph to be rendered in Facebook (ideally pre-render appropriate image to make it "live")
  • Fat Finger UI - a Wizard interface optimized for iPhone
  • Fat Finger UI - a Wizard optimized for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and other "mini browsers" with keyboards
  • Support zooming (to a specific date range) and scrolling (across full range) in graph display
  • Allow gtFtr to react to certain conditions and send personalized messages (eg "well done on improving the situps total over the last couple of weeks" or "I've not heard from you for a while... are you slacking"
  • Support profile data and over-rides (eg message gtFtr to say your default weight will be in Lbs and your prefered date format is m/d/y)
  • Allow profile over-rides (eg traveling in Europe and want to use Kgs on weights, or kms on distance, and have gtFtr automatically translate back to your default measurement. Also understand if you prefix a message with a timestamp it might by d/my/y)
  • Perform more calculations (eg if I ran for 22 mins and consumed 200 calories what's my calorie/hr graph look like)
  • Graph across trackers on similar measures on a (say) daily basis - eg if I used the Elliptical and StairMaster today and recorded time, calories and distance on both... what do my combined figures look like.
  • Respond to users when tweets are processed (eg “@Offbeatmammal – recorded your Elliptical session from 12:46pm”)

Monetization Platform
One day it would be nice if this turned a dollar. At least paid for the hosting and my Twitter bills. At best paid off my house and car (and got me a new mid-life crisis car to drive around with the top down and the dog barking at people... while my wife and daughter shake their heads in shame!)

  • AdSense or similar on the gtFtr main site and blog. Residual revenue
  • Sell targeted advertising / branding - allow the site to be "Themed" by a sponsor for a period of time
  • Affiliate marketing for appropriate products (eg Mona Vie or a protein shake)
  • Tracker based responses - if someone appears to be losing weight, bulking up, going for heart fitness etc allow advertisers to select criteria and have a response (max once per week) to an update that promotes a product or brand (awareness or targeted click-through)

Technology
At the moment the platform is pretty amateur... but that's because it's a long while since I was a coder for a living. For various reasons I want it to continue to leverage ASP.NET and ideally move to take advantage of IIS7, Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and, of course, stick with Silverlight for the graph rendering platform (maybe moving to Silverlight 2.0 when appropriate).

I'd also like to maybe see this extended to other messaging platforms - Jaiku, a Live Messenger bot or responding to status updates from within Facebook. My dream would one day be a piece of exercise equipment that automatically posts the updates for you :)