Motionbased to become Garmin Connect soon!

It was in July 2007, when I decided to get 'marry' running to my life. Having said that, I decided to track my daily runs, and found Motionbased to be offering a nice platform. I had signed up for the Motionbased Standard account by paying $95/year. I had to face a lot of questions from my parents on my decision to pay an amount as steep as $95 per year to track my runs.

I think Motionbased heard me! I received an email two days ago from Motionbased with a 'good news'. Here is what the email read -

Hello MotionBased Subscribers,

While we have posted the update on the release of Garmin Connect and MotionBased subscriptions to our MBlog, Forum and the MotionBased web site, we wanted to send you the information directly to you so you would know what is happening with your account as we come closer to the migration.

As you may know, we've been working on building Garmin Connect to replace MotionBased. We're making strides in improving performance and fixing bugs that we hope will enhance your experience. You've been a great customer and we wanted to thank you for making MotionBased the community that it is.

Unfortunately, our anticipated date to complete the migration of MotionBased to Garmin Connect is delayed. We're making sure that Garmin Connect is faster, more stable, and provides an even better user experience than MotionBased. As we ramp up toward migrating over 4.5 million activities that you've contributed to the TrailNetwork, we are making fixes and new improvements to Garmin Connect every 4 weeks. In the meantime, out of respect for your patronage and recognition for your patience, we've decided to grant additional privileges to paid MotionBased subscribers.

According to our records, you purchased an annual MotionBased Standard subscription before September 30, 2008. You will continue to have access to MotionBased Standard and be granted free access into Garmin Connect Plus for 2 years starting from your original expiration date. As a result, you will no longer receive any subscription charges from MotionBased and your account at Garmin Connect Plus will not auto-renew at the end of the free access period.

Again, we apologize for the delays and thank you for your support.

The MotionBased Team

The first thing I did was to calculate "Ah! So, effectively, I've paid $95 for three years...which is $32 a year". Thats not bad at all...especially for the fact that I get to use all the features of Motionbased Standard for three years, an also get to enjoy Garmin Connect Plus for 2 years (this actually costs $40 per year). So, net-net, I've paid $95 and I get to enjoy services worth $175!!! Thats a deal!!

I'm still wondering what are those 'advanced features' that Garmin Connect Plus is going to offer. How different is this going to be from those offered by Motionbased Standard? I guess the waiting period has now been extended to December 2008! That's moved by three months, as opposed to their first planned release on September 2008.