Interesting enhancements to the EpicMix platform launched to pretty wide acclaim in 2010 – skiers can now share the entire experience on their social networks with a swish of an RFID tag.
The first incarnation of EpicMix allowed users to automatically track their movements by pressing their RFID-enabled ski pass at the top and bottom of slopes, ski lifts, etc.
The technology would then update a dashboard of their activity each day, showing where they skied, distances involved and altitude achieved.
The EpicMix system was installed at a string of ski resorts in the Vail area of Colorado, including Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Keystone, Heavenly and Northstar.
Ramped up for the latest season in conjunction with tech and web firm SapientNitro, skiers can now post their activity, including photos, immediately across various social networks including Facebook and Twitter.
Here is a clip of how it works:
Now some might consider EpicMix yet another travel tool that no-one would use, perhaps just tech geeks.
EpicMix says since the service was launched in November 2011, more than 280,000 messages were posted to Facebook and Twitter in the first few weeks, already passing the total number for the first season.
The number of activations of the RFID technology by guests has also increased by 40% on the previous season.
Other new features include the ability to buy high-res digital versions of professional photos, acollage tool which creates a visualization of the skier’s trip and reward-based tools for services in-resort.
The marriage of RFID and social media is the latest in a number of similar travel-related projects, most notably by a hotel on the European clubbing island of Ibiza which armed guests and visitors with RFID wristbands during their stay.
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About Kevin May
I experienced EpicMix first hand on a ski trip at Beaver Creek over the holiday, and it was a really interesting concept…when it worked. And it actually ties back into the 2012 trend I mentioned on ‘social clusterflocks’ of data as people are passively checking in instead of proactively having to do so, just as EpicMix allows you to do.
They’ve captured a really interesting market because you have two kinds of smartphone users when skiing:
1) Those who aren’t willing to risk damaging their very expensive smartphones due to hard falls or extreme weather conditions and thus don’t bring them and lose the convenience of communication
and
2) Those who are willing to risk it for the sake of staying connected, but are rarely willing to waste time taking off their gloves, pulling a phone out of their pocket in the cold and waiting for cell service to check-in on the mountain or share any data whatsoever.
I know I wasn’t.
But EpicMix allowed me to share my check-in data & my experience on the mountain without having to fit in either of those scenarios. It allowed me to set up my account & preferences prior to my first day of skiing (which long-term they will have a challenge getting a critical mass of people to do), and then each day when my RFID tag is first recognized, I am automatically checked in via Facebook on the mountain… and any pictures I take are automatically shared… and my stats all over the mountain are captured.
The challenges we faced were lost pictures that never ended up being associated with our account & my check-ins didn’t autopost every single day… but the potential is there, and if I lived in a climate that allowed me to ski more frequently, this is a service I would gladly use year-round and see value in.
Will be interesting to see how they begin to integrate more features as a result of the data captured… such as six degrees of separation-like info about other people who know people you know who are also skiing on the mountain at that time, etc.
This is the clusterflocks reference in our Predictions 2012 post, thx SKE.
http://www.tnooz.com/predictions2012
This is my second season using EpicMix. Living in NYC has its benefits, and fortunately one of those benefits are in season 5pm direct flights to Eagle-Vail regional from JFK. I have been able to Log Over 125k vert with EpicMix and never have to take out my phone. Its nice however to be able to show up at the mountain late and pull up EpicMix to find out what lifts your friends are skiing, that way you can make your way to the general area where they are before you have to actually call and make them take out their phone. This season has the added feature of photos! Its made it fun to explore the mountain and find the EpixMix photographers to take your picture in different scenes. Vail and beaver Creek have incredible lighting so these high quality pictures turn out more than decent enough to put on Facebook. EpicMix hooks up to facebook with an auto share feature so all your EpicMix photos end up in an EpicMix Album. When you ski with alot of people who scan in their EpicMix badge the photo instantly trends in the newsfeed- pretty neat. I applaud Vail for making this fun and doing a good job with it. This technology is very expensive to implement and ski resorts are always slow to upgrade tech, Vail has stepped it up at a time when it may not make sense financially but for the sake of the skiers and riders the already social sport is now like a big kids game. Even on a bluebird day with no pow its cool just to ski around exploring and having your pic taken! I will ad that there are still a few kinks in logging the photos with your badge, but a few weeks ago at Vail about 90% of my pictures showed up. Just make sure you email support@epicmix.com so they can continue to improve it. EpixMix also gets you timely on mtn discounts at Mid-Vail and some of the resort owned concessions. Just eat lunch a little later and check the deals before you go. THINK SNOW!