This should be interesting…and by “interesting” I of course mean “this is gonna be a flaming dumpter fire from hell.”
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Yeah, it’s not IF it gets messy… but WHEN things go off the rails is the only question… followed by how bad and how long it takes to fix.
Color me as pessimistic indeed. But Zwift better understand how important this resource is to so many riders (racers in particular) as well as their future success with the push to racing overall. It provides a large amount of info and support that was totally lacking from them (largely on purpose).
I don’t race often or follow it much, but I see this as a huge move and one they could massively screw up if they handle it wrong.
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Cliffs on what zwift power is?
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A multifaceted tool… but mainly the source for final race results, overall rider ranking, and event planning.
It is what the community made to support racing in the very beginning days of the app, when Zwift plainly stated they had no intentions to do anything for racing.
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I read the article and can honestly say I have absolutely no idea what anything in there means. It might as well have just been written in greek lol…
Is Zwift going away or something?
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Well, unless you raced much in Zwift, there’s not much chance you had a need or reason to find it.
No, Zwift isn’t going anywhere (AFAIK). What is changing is a formerly independent site “ZwiftPower” (whose name lead to plenty of confusion about what it was and whether it was directly connect to Zwift from the moment the two independent people created it) is now shifting from an outside service, to one that is owned and operated by Zwift, the actual app and company most people do know.
It’s a transition from them letting (and helping) the outsiders make it work with to support racing and more, to one that they now handle.
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Lol. I feel like a title of “Zwift Buys Third Party Software Company” would have been much more helpful lol 
And dont mind me. I just havent argued with anyone in a while 
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This sounds to me as little different than when Apple frequently absorbs an app or jailbreak tweak into the OS that was previously third party.
My impression from this is that Zwift acknowledges ZP has a valuable approach to solving a problem and rather than try to rip it off and copy it, they purchased and I assume will have greater resources for further development into native zwift? Why does everyone think they’ll screw it up? I’m not really familiar with the company politics and don’t personally race.
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they have, so far, shown zero interest in fixing the problems ZP was made to fix.
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they guys who started ZP are out now and it is being run solely by Zwift.
Combine both of those and you have a recipe for failure through indifference.
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I’m not saying whether zwift will screw it up or not, but isn’t this the step everyone was wanting. I see many complaints on how a third party tool has to be used to get rid of the sand baggers and that zwift does nothing. Now I believe this is step 1 to have an in game first party policing. Whether they screw up steps 2+ is yet to be seen.
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I’ve not read the article but surely like most acquisitions they would keep them on while they work it all out?
It is a good chance they will screw it up. Someone who races on Zwift, in the more legit race series, which utilise ZP, have to weigh in, like SARIS they use ZP to do dual recordings. Zwift, or ZADA whatever it is called now is broken. For instance even if you dual record (using zwiftpower) calibrate, weigh in, do all their real world testing, Zwift can still ban you. I really don’t see this as a way forward for Zwift to legitimise racing. And with their goals on getting into the Olympics a lot of work needs to be done.
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This will only end in tears.
I typed and deleted multiple paragraphs but ultimately I’m a broken record on this topic, so I’ll just say this:
Whoever comes along and actually serves the needs of the grassroots community of racers and competitors in the digital space will make attract a lot of users and make a lot of money.
I’m not betting on Zwift to be the one to do it.
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According to the article, ZP signed over everything to Zwift in Oct 2018. So basically Zwift has had almost 2yrs to get familiar w/all of the ZP code, architecture, etc… I could be very wrong, but surely Zwift has had others working w/the ZP founders (i.e., James and Glen) during this time to prepare for the transition that has occurred.
The lack of any statement from James or Glen is probably due to NDA. At the same time, while things may or may not have transitioned as they liked, professionals do not go burning bridges and/or bad mouthing previous employers.
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I really still dont get what Zwift Power even is; I’ve never done a Zwift race. Do they really not tell you who won at the end? I somehow have a hard time believing that…
I’ve been in the software business too long to feel good about this. When Company B creates something because Company A was too [lazy / busy / cheap / narrow-minded / whatever] to do it themselves, then Company A takes over Company B, the result is NEVER Company A getting its s__t together and recognizing the errors of its ways. The result is ALWAYS that Company A messes up Company B. Another good example in the sports tech biz is Garmin buying (and destroying) MotionBased.
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Zwift only added basic race results in the last year or so (totally from memory). They went 3-4 years with absolutely no or minimal results. They really were pulled into racing by the community.
Additionally, they do no adjustment to people who clearly are racing in the wrong category or have unrealistic performances. ZP allowed for far more control and tracking of leagues and many other aspects.
If you are familiar with how crappy Microsoft is at making some apps (bare bones with no frills), that is what Zwift is, compared to a much fuller app with all the bells and whistles (which ZwiftPower is).
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I’m not familiar with microsoft apps at all honestly…I thought they just did windows and internet explorer, no? I know about exactly enough about computers that I need to know, and no more haha.
I don’t understand the hate for this one and I’m sure I will get some for saying this but here it goes…
Currently there is Zwift, a companion app, and Zwift Power. And if you wanna race, it never hurts to run all of them at the same time. For some races, you HAVE to register with Zwift Power. What a cluster. I can’t sign up for Zwift, enter a race and see how I do on the application I am running aka Zwift? That’s complete nonsense.
The only thing worse than trying to race on Zwift is racing on Zwift with another window running Zwift Power!
The simple integration of ZP into Z, if nothing else changes, is a huge improvement over needing to keep a 3rd party webpage open and refreshed to see where you stand in a race against your category. I’ve tried to get friends racing on Zwift and explaining the purpose of ZP always leaves them crosseyed.
I’m sorry but Zwift Power suuuuuckks. Searching for results sucks. Searching for friends’ results sucks. Waiting sometimes overnight for your results, sucks. Trying to figure our why some people get w/kg’d out of races while others don’t, sucks. Zwift Power is the absolute definition of the “least dirty shirt.” It completely sucks but it sucks less than the alternatives so we are forced to use it.
Yes it adds race management tools that Zwift currently lacks. Yep, agree with that. But I shouldn’t need to run a 3rd party app to race on Zwift effectively. Integrate what ZP does into Zwift and please let me never spend another second on ZP again.
And if the integration ends up in a giant dumpster fire from hell, so be it. It’s broken as is and I suppose it will remain broken if that’s the case. Don’t see any downside.
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