That's a long story. The simplest way to put it is, first, there are hundreds of people out there in the shoe marketing companies who are creating amazing shoes. I started running in the late 1980s, and improvements in my running shoes just between then and now are unbelievable. Next, there are literally millions of runners out there with a bewildering array of gaits, pronation degrees, stride lengths, etc. etc. And in between, the best thing we've found yet to connect that fantastic technology to those individual runners is still a knowledgeable running store clerk, and not all of us have access to one of those.
There are already "shoe finders" in many degrees of complexity on the internet. I was even responsible for one of them going online when Runner's World launched their Shoe Finder in the late 1990s. (I'm not sure if their current system has any roots in the one we created, but it's possible.) Without exception, they all ask for some details many runners shouldn't have to know or understand: "How much do you pronate?" "What are your biomechanics?" "Do you need a stability shoe or a motion control shoe?" We're not podiatrists or shoe engineers, and we shouldn't need to be.
Our goal is to make it possible for you to skip those questions. Just like the guy at the running store, we just want to ask you what you've run in before, and how you like it—or how you don't like it. We'll use that information and our own bank of experience to make an experienced recommendation based on more than just data about the shoes: we'll call on the experience of hundreds, hopefully thousands, of other runners.
What makes this better than all those other shoe finders?
Right now, as of January, 2008, not much. One thing we do better than anyone else is tell you which shoes are similar to the one you're looking at, but honestly, folks, that's just a SQL query, not high technology.
Eventually, though, your help will. Trite, but true. The experience with the listed shoes which you share by reviewing and rating them will help us build an algorithm which recommends shoes in a truly "smart" way, not by the mechanistic process-of-elimination system used by most shoe finders.
Why do I need to register to rate shoes?
Because our system depends on not just assembling shoe ratings, but also on how you as an individual rate different models, we need to know which reviews are yours. That said, we don't need to know much about you; an email address and a password are sufficient for registration (though if you don't want all your distance in kilometers and weights in grams, you should probably indicate if you prefer English units). All we really need is to know which reviews come from the same person; we wouldn't even use your email address as a login name if it wasn't the easiest way to ensure you use a unique login name that you can remember.
If all you need is a login, why do you ask for all this other information, like how much we run and our weight and height?
Because it might come in handy. A man who is 5'8" and 220 pounds is going to like a shoe for a different reason than a man who is 6'6" and 180. Maybe the shorter man likes the support; maybe the taller one finds it's the only model in his size. If we know how those two raters are different, we can give more weight (*cough*) to the runner who is closer to your characteristics when we make suggestions for you. But if you don't feel like telling us your weight, don't; the whole point of this process is to make things as easy as possible for you.
What are you going to do with my data?
Your data, in particular? Nothing much. You can check our privacy policy (once we post it) for more details, but we're not going to sell your ratings, nor your email address or personal data. What we will do is use your ratings, in aggregate with other users' ratings, to produce recommendations for other users. We may offer this recommendation service to other sites, but again, they won't see individual users' ratings, just the suggestions produced from the aggregate.
The "Shoes like this" box doesn't include some models I know are just like this one. Why not?
Simple: the system doesn't know enough about them. Our database, as you may have noticed, doesn't hold a lot of data about any given shoe model, and most of it is optional. (Infrequently asked question: what's the minimum information we need to list a shoe? Answer: Its name, its brand, and its U.S. list price. Other data is either optional or we'll just guess because it doesn't matter much if we're wrong.)
The biggest reason a shoe may not be listed with others like it is if we don't have good weight data about it. The query for "shoes like this" checks for shoes which have a similar weight to the one shown, and if we're missing a shoe's weight in the database, this query won't find that shoe. (Likewise, when you're looking at a shoe with no weight data, it will show lots of different "shoes like this", some of which may not be much like it at all, because they also have null weights listed.) This is a bug we're working on fixing, but it's going to take a while; it's surprisingly tough to find good weight data on many shoes.
How are you planning to make money?
Isn't that a little tactless? Asking a website how it's going to make money is like asking a graduate student when they're getting their Ph.D., or a college senior if they've found a job yet. But if you must know, we will probably, eventually, run ads on this site, and include links to many online shoe-selling outlets which will provide us with some revenue when people click them and buy shoes. That's not the only plan we have in mind, but it's one you're most likely to notice.
Why don't you have my Adidas Equipment Gazelles from 1998 listed?
Those were sweet shoes, weren't they? We don't have them listed for two reasons. One, if we tried to list every shoe model ever, we'd do nothing for weeks but research shoes. We have hundreds already listed, and we don't even have a complete catalog of 2007 yet. Second, the older a shoe gets (and the older your experience with it gets), the less relevant it becomes. It's less and less like current models, and you are less and less like the runner you were when you ran in it. We had to pick an arbitrary "sunset date" for old shoes, and we set it more or less in 2002.
Why don't you have my New Balance 858s from 2007 listed?
Oops, looks like we're not perfect. We must have missed them somewhere. Help us out: drop by our missing shoe form and let us know.
You guys should have a running log.
Great idea. Now, about the extra six hours in the day we ordered...