Another digital tool has emerged that will enable the snow industry to attract and retain a new pool of riders...

TTR Snowboarding has a brand-new, free App for the iPhone and iPad. The App gives you access to rider profiles and rankings as well as a look at all the current contenders for the TTR World Tour Overall, Halfpipe, Slopestyle, and Big Air titles. Head over to the iTunes App Store to download it for free.

I've said for a long time that technology has the opportunity to serve as a bridge between an online/offline existence. The marketing resource for cultural and lifestyle brands to attract new customers. Sports, especially snowboarding, would be able to address participant gap via new media technologies. It is after all the way to reach young urban consumers. Based on The Creators Project posting I read this morning, we aren't too far off from seeing the content that can deliver on this idea...

Step into the fray, media artist and keen snowboarder Trent Brooks who’s developed an open source project called AntiMap to take that data indexing experience to the slopes, gathering real-time rider data while you’re out skiing or snowboarding. It then analyzes your numbers and even syncs it to video footage of you riding around, so you can marvel at your sick moves while enjoying some après-ski downtime.

So...kind of a no brainer right? Mobile is key to reaching the U.S. urban youth segment. It significantly impacts sales of action sports companies in the all important 18 to 34 year old segment.

According to Mark Grondin, SVP of Marketing at Shopatron, “Brands with younger customer groups, like Spy Optic for example, are getting as much as 5%-9% of their traffic from mobile devices. Of those mobile visitors, about 2% are currently purchasing, but that number is also steadily increasing.”

Recent studies, including one by Google, indicate that mobile is a must for reaching the U.S. Hispanic market. 2011 will be the year that more brands follow the rabbit down the digital hole.

Just think about these stats:

• 93% of U.S. Hispanics use a mobile phone regularly
• 45% of U.S. Hispanic mobile phone users have smartphones compared to 34% of general market
• 87% of U.S. Hispanic mobile phone users have contract plans and only 8% have pre-paid plans

Brilliant! Hopefully most folks realize by now that the mobile technology and urban youth market go hand in hand by now. It's going to be interesting to see how much of an affect apps like TSO will have in growing action sports, in particular the snow and surf categories.

We’re setting the bar as high as we can by signing athletes like P Rod. Riders that aren’t just the best in the world, but that also really want to give hands-on, personal instruction to help riders at all levels progress.

Think about it. When you know little about something these days you seek out information via the Internet. A how-to video app has big implications. Masekela clearly recognizes the power of mobile...

We live in an era where every participant in action sports is used to having access to everything right at their fingertips. And that was the driving force behind the creation of TSO – 24/7 access to instruction from the best riders in the world, all in the palm of your hand.