How Weather.com Is Building a Social Meda Weather Alert System
Forget the screeching emergency tone that interrupts TV and radio shows during severe weather. The Weather Channel wants to build a weather alert system based on social media, and it’s started laying down that framework with a site redesign that launched Wednesday.
The redesign, among other updates, lets users tweet weather warnings or post them to Facebook.
Weather Channel VP of Web Products Mike Finnerty calls this social media implementation “phase one.” The channel is working with Facebook on “phase two,” which involves incorporating weather warnings into Facebook’s open graph.
In the future, Finnerty says, you’ll be able to see weather warnings that affect family members or friends in your Facebook network while you’re on the site. You’ll be able to post those warnings directly to their individual Facebook walls.
“It takes that annoying tone you get on radio or TV and makes it really, really personal,” Finnerty says.
While the National Weather Service (NWS), Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have traditionally relied on television and radio to broadcast severe weather warnings, websites such as Weather.com could play a big part in pushing those warnings out through the most recently mainstream form of media.
According to comScore, The Weather Channel’s website, Weather.com, is the 20th most trafficked website in the United States — ahead of Twitter, LinkedIn and Yelp.
In March, it had about 54 million unique visitors. The next biggest weather site, WeatherBug, had about 22 million unique visitors in the same month.
Meanwhile, social weather reports are becoming something of a trend. Startup weather apps such as Weathermob and Ourcast, for instance, focus on social aspects. Both allow users to share, comment on and report the weather.
In August 2011, the Weather Channel partnered with Twitter to launch 220 local weather Twitter feeds for cites with populations of more than 100,000. Though Twitter is not currently involved with the Emergency Broadcast system, Finnerty says, “that may change.”
In addition to taking its first steps toward social media weather warnings, Weather.com also revamped its website. Its forecasts now tell you when it will rain or stop raining in your area within 15-minute increments.
Personal features — such as suggested activities from Weather.com’s content partners based on your interests and the weather — also make their debut, and you can now change The Weather Channel logo to read “[Your Name]‘s Weather.”
How would you prefer to get your weather alerts? Let us know in the comments.
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