Yesterday sporting giant Nike unveiled the centrepiece of its much hyped Make It Count campaign: the Nike FuelBand. Similar in appearance to the company's Sportband, the Fuelband's LED display tracks your steps, time and calories. So far so usual. The point of difference here is NikeFuel.

Essentially, what Nike has done is create a new, universal system of measurement. With the strapline ‘Life is a sport’, NikeFuel effectively levels the playing field when it comes to tracking sporting and everyday activity. Input your daily goals, and the FuelBand will measure your movement – the closer you get to your goal, the closer to green you get on the LED display. Equipped with USB, the band also syncs wirelessly with your iPhone for more detailed data, instantly making your information available to share through your social networks.

It’s an inspired move that means athletes – and non-athletes – of different disciplines and levels can now compete and collaborate with each other, making the whole concept of the Quantified Self more socially dynamic, and perhaps more importantly, fun.

The FuelBand won’t be available worldwide until May, so it’s still too early to tell whether Nike has revolutionised the game (again). But the potential for the FuelBand to bring data tracking and Quantified Self to the masses is staggering.