Would You Use an App to Track Your Period?
One of the latest apps to receive big money in a recent round of funding has been downloaded over 100 million times, has 45 million people registered and generates 2.5 million comments a day with its 3.2 million daily active users. And most of them are probably women. That’s because the app we’re talking about is Dayima, a period-tracking, female-focused mobile health destination from China.
Although it’s not the first to provide a way for women to track their cycle, the attention paid (not to mention that $30 million in funding paid…) to Dayima, whose CEO Chai Ke was one of 2014 Forbes China’s 30 Under 30, could mean a significant surge in female-focused health tracking around the world. Going beyond just keeping a calendar of your menstruation cycle, Dayima is its own social network, community and content creator. The site features a range of articles — everything from the truth behind period products to a sun umbrella buying guide — while a handy word cloud offers links to hot health topics like fitness, insomnia, PMS, backache and even postpartum.
Do a search for “period” in our hometown, US of A App Store and you’re greeted with hundreds of results. There are apps meant to help you understand your ovulation like Kindara, which puts “your fertility in your hands,” and the cutely-designed Clue that tracks your cycle and shouts out your period and your fertility window. There are also more simple, less fertility-focused apps like Period Tracker or iPeriod that provide a digital way for you to keep your cycle straight and note associated moods, symptoms and weight gain or loss.
While it would take some tweaking to become popular in the US, what we like about Dayima is that it goes beyond just being a glorified, girly calendar, but isn’t all about ovulation either. It’s a digital destination for health news, concerns and content created with women in mind that offers a place for them to connect on those topics. With a greater focus on digitizing all of our vitals and health info, there’s an opportunity for a female-focused app or two (maybe after a domino of acquisitions) to rise to the top of the “women’s health” category. Either way, we wouldn’t mind test driving a US version of Dayima… maybe, next month?
Sooo… we want to know! Do you or would you use an app to help track your period? We’re all friends here! Share below!
