We needed to create a tool that’s fun, useful, and authentic enough to earn the respect of skateboarders — a notoriously hard-to-reach culture.

We set out to create never-before-seen digital skate experiences, collaborating with pro riders, and changing the way skaters participate in the world’s largest action sport.

We helped skaters progress in their sport, connect with their peers and pro riders, and earn respect for one another with features like video posting, challenges, and personal skate histories.

The Nike SB App is the tool skateboarders needed. Interactive videos allow users to view more than 600 tricks in our patented Trick Tree — the first ever taxonomy of every skate trick attempted, which is used as navigation in the app and can be printed as a poster.

Skaters can see each trick from multiple angles and playback directions in varying speeds. Once they learn the tricks, users can upload their own footage to extend the Trick Tree, compete in pro-issued Nike SB challenges and even go head to head with any app user, worldwide, in a game of S.K.A.T.E.

In its first four months, The Nike SB App skaters have uploaded more than 60,000 videos and played more than 10,000 games of S.K.A.T.E.

During the launch event, 17,000 tweets were generated and 178,000 skaters watched the YouTube live broadcast.