Friday, October 05, 2012

Track Your Favorite Runners During Marathon or 10-mile


You can track as many as three of your favorite participants in the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon and/or the Medtronic TC 10 Mile on October 7.   Fans/family/friends can  track up to three athletes registered in the marathon or ten mile using technology provided by Avtex, who will once again partner with Twin Cities In Motion to bring the Marathon/10-Mile events closer to the people following them.  

As runners progress along the course, real-time updates via text-message will be sent to their fans’ phones. They can  follow the runners via text message by using AthleteTracker, a complimentary application that will send real-time reports on individual runners on race day.

In addition to allowing followers to sign up and use the service, this year AthleteTracker includes the ability for runners to sign up and see who is following them and invite others to follow them.  “We received a lot of great feedback from runners last year and wanted to improve the experience to allow them to have some control over who was following them,” said Eric Raarup, Chief Marketing Technology Officer for Avtex. 

This year, AthleteTracker will also take advantage of the latest cloud technologies from Microsoft.  Raarup said, “We send tens of thousands of text messages with AthleteTracker and we wanted to leverage the scalability of the cloud during the race.”

The registration website has been optimized to allow individuals to sign up using a smartphone, tablet or computer.  To register for the free service, visit: http://www.avtex.com/athletetracker .

At the sign-up page, followers simply enter their mobile phone number and submit the names of the runners they wish to track.  Athletes running in the events can use the same web-page to see who plans to follow them on race day.  To use AthleteTracker, users must register by Saturday, October 6 at 7 PM.

For more information, contact athletetracker@avtex.com.

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