WXforum.net

Weather Software => What Weather Software should I use/buy? => Topic started by: Billyram on April 10, 2017, 05:08:06 PM

Title: Weathercloud
Post by: Billyram on April 10, 2017, 05:08:06 PM
I just got a email from Weathercloud inviting me to register my station with them and enjoy their web page.
Any body have any input on them?
Billy
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: jmcmurry on April 10, 2017, 05:56:35 PM
If you search this forum, you'll find many references to it.

- Jim
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: Jáchym on April 10, 2017, 06:11:53 PM
It is IMHO a promising project. I am in touch with the developers and was/am helping with some parts of the site. It is obviously not as big as WU (yet :D), but they keep on adding new features and it does not have all the issues WU has.
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: ocala on April 10, 2017, 08:45:45 PM
I downloaded the module for Weatherlink and tried it out. Very impressive but what immediately turned me off was the advertising at the top of the mobile page.
You asked for my data, I gave you my data, and now to view it I have to look at adds?
Sorry, this won't work for me.
I did email them about it asking them why and this was their response.
Hi Dave,

Thank you for the clarification.

Some time ago we decided to add a banner to the top of the mobile version of our site.

These ads help us cover part of the costs of maintaining Weathercloud.

Regards,

--
The Weathercloud team
 
   
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: Jáchym on April 10, 2017, 09:07:31 PM
I can understand that,  how much do you think your data as such generates to them... 
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: ocala on April 10, 2017, 09:19:44 PM
I can understand that,  how much do you think your data as such generates to them...
Practically nothing on it's own, but as a whole it probably generates something.
They are new and maybe things will change in the future but I do like the layout of the data.
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: Jáchym on April 11, 2017, 06:00:57 AM
I dont like ads - no wonder I dont have a single on any meteotemplate related website, and I recently delete them on the YT channel as well - on the other hand, you can probably guess your data creates absolutely negligible money to them. The fact you send data to them primarily brings benefit to you because you can look at it, analyze it, others can look at it etc. I doubt anyone buys this data from them, it is not very useful because they dont have much and accuracy of all this is also questionable.

My guess is 99% of incomes is from the ads, not your data.
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: W3DRM on April 11, 2017, 11:55:38 AM
I have no issue with any site placing ads on webpages providing they offer a means of not showing them to those who are "contributors" to their product. FlightRadar24 comes to mind as way to offer ad-free viewing to those of us who feed them real-time flight data information. Non-contributors see the ads. Weathercloud could easily do the same thing which would solve the issue completely.
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: Jáchym on April 11, 2017, 12:02:00 PM
The problem is that flightradar is a page interesting to many people and only a few contribute.

Unlike weathercloud, where I would guess about 90% of people looking at it are actually users who send data. There are hundreds of other websites about weather and normal public will go to those, they wont even know about weathercloud. But flightradar is very popular and interesting to many, probably with no decent alternative. So that makes a huge difference.

If 5% of your users contribute, you can afford giving them ad-free version. If it is like 90%, you cant do that.
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: W3DRM on April 11, 2017, 12:17:06 PM
The problem is that flightradar is a page interesting to many people and only a few contribute.

Unlike weathercloud, where I would guess about 90% of people looking at it are actually users who send data. There are hundreds of other websites about weather and normal public will go to those, they wont even know about weathercloud. But flightradar is very popular and interesting to many, probably with no decent alternative. So that makes a huge difference.

If 5% of your users contribute, you can afford giving them ad-free version. If it is like 90%, you cant do that.

True, however if Weathercloud has a viable product it will continue to grow in popularity and the ratio of contributors to non-contributors will also continue to decrease thus, increasing their profitability through the ads. If they can create a product that is useful, like FlightRadar or FlightAware, then they will be successful.

I'm not trying to get something for nothing. I'll contribute to such an effort providing those receiving my data recognize that the only reason they could be successful is by treating their contributors at a different level than those who are not contributors. Perhaps that "difference" may be some displays or reports that are an enhancement of what non-contributing viewers see.
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: Jáchym on April 11, 2017, 12:26:22 PM
But you are contradicting yourself. If they are to become popular, widely known, they need some finances for marketing... you can achieve popularity without marketing only in very rare cases, usually when you have something very unique - which is not the case of WeatherCloud.
What you get for sending data to them is a page where you can look at your own data and analyze it - someone had to write those scripts so that you can look at the graphs, tables, maintain the database, servers... and that is not that easy (personal experience :D)
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: W3DRM on April 11, 2017, 01:21:49 PM
I don't think I am contradicting myself. I am only saying that without a source of data from their contributors they have absolutely nothing. They, "Weathercloud", other than gathering official NWS or other publicly available weather data, are totally dependent on PWS inputs. It is those individual personal weather station feeds that provide them with the detail they need for them to have the unique data that isn't available publicly. Sure, they have development costs for the software as well as data servers to handle the inputs but, if they don't do something special for those who provide them with that vital data, they will not survive. As we've seen in the past when rumors came out that WU was going to start charging all users, including those of us who were contributors, the response by this community was immediate and unanimous that we would stop all feeds to WU - period. Weathercloud is essentially doing the same thing by forcing everyone to view their ads and thus, not taking into consideration any alternative for those who provide them with "free" data feeds.

The real question is whether Weathercloud can create a product that is unique enough to draw the necessary user base to keep them going financially. Only time will tell. WU, whether we like it or not, did provide a product that drew many viewers from around the world. We also see what happens when a company stops providing products that their customer base wants - they slowly begin to deteriorate and lose that essential critical mass of users. The decline simply feeds on itself and soon, the viewers stop visiting their website and they go out of business.

I used to work for a company that had small a lapel button with the letters "C.A.R.E." on it. It stood for Customers Are the Reason for Everything and without customers, we will have no business. If any business stops asking their customers what they want and need, and thus eliminating the customer from the business equation, they will fail very quickly.
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: Jáchym on April 11, 2017, 01:35:08 PM
But I still think you are ignoring one fact.

It would be a different matter if you sent data to them and they saved it "somewhere" on their server and then sold it etc. But in this case, the benefit you get from them is that they process your data, you can view your own data, look at your own station stats etc. Thats what you are getting from them. Obviously this does not generate any money to them.

Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: gpbarth on April 11, 2017, 01:55:24 PM
Well, I just joined, but as of yet, they don't support my Acurite Smart Hub. So I posted a note to them asking if that was possible. I'll see what their response will be. I looked into Meteobridge, but the Smart Hub came with my unit, and the Meteo is kinda expensive. Hopefully, they will incorporate the Smart Hub into their system, and I will switch over. We'll see...
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: ocala on April 11, 2017, 04:03:55 PM
Well, I just joined, but as of yet, they don't support my Acurite Smart Hub. So I posted a note to them asking if that was possible. I'll see what their response will be. I looked into Meteobridge, but the Smart Hub came with my unit, and the Meteo is kinda expensive. Hopefully, they will incorporate the Smart Hub into their system, and I will switch over. We'll see...
Sorry gpbarth.
Sometimes a thread gets started on here then goes in another direction. It's kind of the way it works around here.  :-)
Hopefully your weather station will be added to their contributing devices in the future.
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: ocala on April 11, 2017, 04:05:35 PM
But I still think you are ignoring one fact.

It would be a different matter if you sent data to them and they saved it "somewhere" on their server and then sold it etc. But in this case, the benefit you get from them is that they process your data, you can view your own data, look at your own station stats etc. Thats what you are getting from them. Obviously this does not generate any money to them.
We can argue this fact all day but I agree with Don in that if you are contributor you should get an ad free page.
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: hankster on April 11, 2017, 04:35:49 PM
It would be a different matter if you sent data to them and they saved it "somewhere" on their server and then sold it etc.

But do we know that they are not doing that? If they aren't now you can bet that is the plan sometime in the future if they can grow large enough. By sending data you agree to their TOS which explicitly spells out they can sell your data.  From the TOS:

You retain all ownership rights in your content and data. However, by submitting content and data to Weathercloud, you hereby grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free and transferable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such content and data, subject to the application of our privacy policy. Such additional uses of your content and data by Weathercloud or other companies, organizations or individuals who partner with us, may be made with no compensation paid to you.
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: Jáchym on April 11, 2017, 06:25:23 PM
Dont get me wrong, Im not trying to defend them, on the other hand, they are not unique and I welcome any alternative to WU! And I understand that it is difficult to raise enough to be able to start.

You can look at it from two perspectives:
1. I send them data so I should get something for it - i.e. ad-free site
or
2. They offer me a tool/service that allows me to look at my data in a nice way, using graphs, tables and compare it with nearby stations so I should offer them something for it - i.e. load the ads

As I said in my previous post, I think the problem here is that unlike for example airtraffic, weathercloud is mostly interesting only to people who are members and want to check their data, so if those had it for free, you would basically have no-one viewing the ads.

P.S. If you really find it too annoying, there is always AdBlock ;-) Works on mobile phones too...
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: W3DRM on April 11, 2017, 07:26:39 PM
I'm trying NOT to argue with Jachym or anyone else on this matter. Weathercloud has a business model that I don't agree with and thus, I will not now or in the future supply them with my weather data. I would gladly reconsider doing so if they change their policy so it recognizes the value of the data supplied to them by offering an ad-free application.

I have plenty of ways to look at my own weather data via my own website and the myriad of other services that already recognize the value of an ad-free environment so I have no need or desire to provide Weathercloud or any other such organization a free ride with my data.

Perhaps I am being too critical but that is how I feel and I have no plans to change my thoughts on this matter. I will also make no other comments along these lines as I don't want to belabor the topic any further.
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: Jáchym on April 12, 2017, 06:45:31 AM
I respect your stance, but it is a vicous cycle.

If you want to attract people to your site, you have to have attractive content. In case of WeatherCloud, to get attention of normal people, they need lots of stations to cover as large area as possible. But the problem is that as you can see, they will only start making money from non-contributing users, once they have many contributing ones and so there is an obvious problem. If they make the page ad-free for contributors, they need money from elsewhere (non-contributing ones). But those will only come if there are plenty of contributing ones, in other words, they first need many contributing users and if those dont pay, then they would be doing everything for free.
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: hankster on April 12, 2017, 08:02:01 AM
Offering contributing members an ad free experience didn't stop WU from growing over the years. That's the problem with companies now, they put short term profit over long term goals.
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: Jáchym on April 12, 2017, 08:26:15 AM
I think it is because WU really was a pioneer in this field, they were unique and so it was much much easier to get users and visitors back then.
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: Billyram on April 12, 2017, 04:09:16 PM
Well I don't have to worry about this anymore. I tried to register and it didn't work any way.
Billy
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: hankster on April 12, 2017, 04:32:42 PM
In that case a "new comer" needs to do something that is different and unique to get attention. I suppose forcing ads on contributors is different, not sure it is the right different. :)

BTW, I upload to WeatherCloud. I can't remember the last time I visited there before this discussion (and forgot I was even uploading until I looked).

For me the main problem with WC is that when you visit their "home" page there is no weather displayed, just a bunch of junk trying to get people to upload data. Luckily there is a very small "map" link at the top right side of the page a new visitor would have to notice through all the other noise to actually find some weather information.

Go to weather.com or WU and what do you see on their home page? It's weather, what a crazy idea!  :grin:
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: Jáchym on April 12, 2017, 05:21:52 PM
Yes, there is lot they can do better, but using WU as something to aim for :D :D Rather the opposite :D
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: hankster on April 12, 2017, 09:41:27 PM
Yea, I know, highlighting the weather on a weather web site is the wrong thing to do.  =D>

Actually a lot can be learned from WU. You can learn what to do when new to grow your site and it's popularity. You can also learn not what to do when you get too big for your own good.

But what is happening to WU can not be blamed on the originators of WU. I would guess if they were still running it much of what is happening wouldn't be. But when a business is bought out many good or bad things can happen, we see that in all industries.
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: Jáchym on April 13, 2017, 05:30:21 AM
Yes, I completely agree with that, but one thing that immediately comes to my mind with regards to this is that if they had enough money they wont sell the company and we are back to the original problem. And thats not to mention that WU was in a way in a much easier position because they were first. Creating some web application/page 15 years ago was like it or not, much easier because there was at least 100 times less sites and so lot of potential for new ideas etc. Finding a gap in the market today is extremely difficult, just like for example becoming a successful blogger, youtuber etc.
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: weatherc on April 13, 2017, 07:46:46 AM
My 2 €urocents as maintainer of the EWN.

Sad to say but the quality of PWS data when looked in bulk are quite bad. This because there are allways stations what care nada about the accuracy of the sent data. This can NOT be pared with any single brand of station as there are cheap brand stations with good data as also higher priced brand stations with bad data.

The ways to filter theese out are also quite limited, for example temperature. As we well know can temperature change a lot during ie thunderstorms. Another is the fact one can NOT compare the data to neighbour stations either. This again do it quite impossible to catch ie. "solarheated" stations or other stations with "different" temperature. Just as one example.

Another thing is that >1 minute old data are in the facto old data. The data should be live to be intresting.
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: Jáchym on April 13, 2017, 08:19:26 AM
Quote
Another is the fact one can NOT compare the data to neighbour stations either.

Exactly! Especially wind and precipitation. Unfortunately, I think 99% of all weather networks on the web do this and they will go as far as disabling your station if you dont match data from the nearby stations (even if you tell them exactly why this is and why the conditions are different). In some networks you get a "warning" and a gold star taken away :D
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: weatherc on April 13, 2017, 08:35:56 AM
Exactly! Especially wind and precipitation. Unfortunately, I think 99% of all weather networks on the web do this and they will go as far as disabling your station if you dont match data from a nearby stations (even if you tell them exactly why this is and why the conditions are different). In some networks you get a "warning" and a gold star taken away :D

Yep. :grin:
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: ocala on November 18, 2017, 05:03:51 PM
Thought I would give them another try and see if the ads were gone.
Only problem is I'm using Cumulus instead of Weatherlink and I'm running into a problem.
At the end of the installation instructions it says to "Run the ad-on program"
What program are they talking about? I stopped and restarted Cumulus thinking that might be it  but that didn't work.
Anyone?
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: PaulMy on November 18, 2017, 10:34:59 PM
I presume they are referring to Adrian's program that is needed if using Cumulus 1 http://sandaysoft.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=11998&hilit=weathercloud&start=30#p104663
http://app.weathercloud.net/d0280022074

Enjoy,
Paul
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: ocala on November 19, 2017, 11:32:21 AM
Thanks Paul.
Downloaded the program but no luck.
Even tried to install Cumulus MX ( for the 3rd time) but no luck there either.
I'll just stay with Cumulus 1 and be happy with that. :-)
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: Jjm457 on November 24, 2017, 04:55:22 AM
Thanks Paul.
Downloaded the program but no luck.
Even tried to install Cumulus MX ( for the 3rd time) but no luck there either.
I'll just stay with Cumulus 1 and be happy with that. :-)

I had a few tries at it.  In the folder where the weathercloud appication is, you have to run as administrator (right click and select run as administrator). After that the weathercloud logger
w show up in folder.  I then closed and reopened cumulus.
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: ocala on November 24, 2017, 06:45:07 AM
I have got that far but when I get to the comand prompt screen that's as far as I can get.
When I try to type in CumulusMX nothing happens. Meaning no text shows up.
Even had the kids give it shot and still no luck.
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: Jjm457 on November 24, 2017, 08:21:52 AM
I did not run from the command prompt. I OPENED in the file folder and right clicked on the application to run as administrator.

I totally gave up on MX.. IT NEVER COOPERATED!
Did you edit and save changes in the configuration (ini) file? Also, make sure you have the correct path on the last line of the configuration ini file.
Title: Re: Weathercloud
Post by: ocala on November 24, 2017, 08:41:20 AM
I had simultaneously tried to get Cumulus with Weathercloud and CumulusMX to work.
Unfortunately I kept opening Cumulus with out the "Run as Administrator" option.
Doing that just now it worked. I was getting the two mixed up.
Thanks for help.
CumulusMX on the other hand, that's another story. Still have to work on that one.

Edit. No it may not be working. I opened Weatherlink a while ago and it updated WC. The page says it was updated an hour ago.
We'll see in a while if i'm getting current updates.