Poll

What is your primary reason to upload your weather data?

So that I can see it live
1 (5.6%)
So that I can see it as it changes over time
2 (11.1%)
So that others can see it live
10 (55.6%)
So that others can see as it changes over time
2 (11.1%)
I want it to be used to improve weather forecasts
3 (16.7%)
I want it to be sold and make a profit
0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 18

Author Topic: WU Alternative?  (Read 8086 times)

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Offline webcams.travel

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WU Alternative?
« on: January 22, 2018, 08:40:47 AM »
The team who created lookr.com is going to build an improved WU alternative that works smoothly - if you want us to. But this requires resources. So we are asking weather enthusiasts - like you - out there, if they would be willing to pay a small price for such a satisfying service.

We are not weather enthusiasts ourselves. But we love webcams. And we have a genuine interest in providing a satisfying service for our users. Now, and in the future. Below you see two sample screenshots of how our new service might look like:

Update:
We have two experienced weather enthusiasts on board in this project to make sure we will go into the right direction. And of course, we will stay in touch through your feedback on how to improve and develop what actually makes sense. For example, we already got feedback that it would be enough to update every 5 seconds for rapid fire, since most weather stations won't be able to update every second (as suggested by our survey before).

Please let us know in this survey (https://goo.gl/cZ5DNs), if you are interested in such an improved WU alternative. Thank you.
https://goo.gl/cZ5DNs (Google Survey)

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Please let us know in this survey (https://goo.gl/cZ5DNs), if you are interested in such an improved WU alternative. Thank you.
https://goo.gl/cZ5DNs (Google Survey)
« Last Edit: January 25, 2018, 09:14:49 AM by webcams.travel »

Offline WSWeather

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Re: WU Alternative?
« Reply #1 on: January 22, 2018, 12:02:42 PM »
65°F and snowing...looks about as accurate as WU.  :lol:

Offline webcams.travel

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Re: WU Alternative?
« Reply #2 on: January 23, 2018, 01:27:58 AM »
65°F and snowing...looks about as accurate as WU.  :lol:

 ;)

Offline Felix1

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Re: WU Alternative?
« Reply #3 on: January 23, 2018, 12:28:39 PM »
@We are not weather enthusiasts ourselves


In that case, you probably need to find some folks from the survey responses to start giving you an idea of what the "average" enthusiast, who's spent many hundreds of dollars setting up a station, would consider the bare minimum before he/she would consider paying you monthly to display their data.


Many of us already have websites so yours would probably be geared toward those who have no desire to maintain a personal website (or don't have the experience to set up a site).


I just get the feeling here that you don't yet have an understanding of the level of effort and scope of work required to make a go of something like this. Better get some advisors on board.

Offline saratogaWX

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Re: WU Alternative?
« Reply #4 on: January 23, 2018, 01:03:30 PM »
n.b. from admin: I removed two duplicate postings from two boards with the same content as the original post here. (saratogaWX)
Ken True/Saratoga, CA, USA main site: saratoga-weather.org
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Offline webcams.travel

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Re: WU Alternative?
« Reply #5 on: January 24, 2018, 12:10:33 AM »
@We are not weather enthusiasts ourselves

In that case, you probably need to find some folks from the survey responses to start giving you an idea of what the "average" enthusiast, who's spent many hundreds of dollars setting up a station, would consider the bare minimum before he/she would consider paying you monthly to display their data.

Many of us already have websites so yours would probably be geared toward those who have no desire to maintain a personal website (or don't have the experience to set up a site).

I just get the feeling here that you don't yet have an understanding of the level of effort and scope of work required to make a go of something like this. Better get some advisors on board.

Hi Felix


It is always a good idea to bring an experienced advisor on board! And we actually have two, currently. We should mention that, thank you! And of course, we will also allow and listen to feedback from users.

How many (in %) of you would you estimate, don't have or want to create their own website (i.e. be interested in our service)? And how many of you here are actually using WU currently?
« Last Edit: January 24, 2018, 12:25:51 AM by webcams.travel »

Offline webcams.travel

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Re: WU Alternative?
« Reply #6 on: January 24, 2018, 12:11:53 AM »
n.b. from admin: I removed two duplicate postings from two boards with the same content as the original post here. (saratogaWX)

Thank you for your info. Is it OK if we just post a link to this post in the ChitChat board? Because we want to reach as many as possible to participate in order for this project to survive...

Offline webcams.travel

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Re: WU Alternative?
« Reply #7 on: January 24, 2018, 12:19:27 AM »
Update:
We have two experienced weather enthusiasts on board in this project to make sure we will go into the right direction. And of course, we will stay in touch through your feedback on how to improve and develop what actually makes sense. For example, we already got feedback that it would be enough to update every 5 seconds for rapid fire, since most weather stations won't be able to update every second (as suggested by our survey before).

Offline saratogaWX

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Re: WU Alternative?
« Reply #8 on: January 24, 2018, 12:59:13 AM »
n.b. from admin: I removed two duplicate postings from two boards with the same content as the original post here. (saratogaWX)

Thank you for your info. Is it OK if we just post a link to this post in the ChitChat board? Because we want to reach as many as possible to participate in order for this project to survive...
There is no need for duplicate postings. When folks use the unread replies at the top of each page, they'll see any new posts you make.  Lots of people use that mechanism to see "what's new" and that obviates the need to post in multiple boards.  Besides, their posts to topics on this thread keeps everything in one place.
Ken True/Saratoga, CA, USA main site: saratoga-weather.org
Davis VP1+ FARS, Blitzortung RED, GRLevel3, WD, WL, VWS, Cumulus, Meteobridge
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Offline webcams.travel

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Re: WU Alternative?
« Reply #9 on: January 24, 2018, 02:02:29 AM »
There is no need for duplicate postings. When folks use the unread replies at the top of each page, they'll see any new posts you make.  Lots of people use that mechanism to see "what's new" and that obviates the need to post in multiple boards.  Besides, their posts to topics on this thread keeps everything in one place.

OK, sounds good. Thank you for your info and support!

Offline waiukuweather

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Re: WU Alternative?
« Reply #10 on: January 24, 2018, 04:19:12 AM »
I do applaud what you are doing
but WU do seem committed to getting back to how they used to be for reliability
(see the thread about that)
so maybe see how that pans out before spending too much more time and resources on this?
although doing the survey first is a good idea

Offline webcams.travel

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Re: WU Alternative?
« Reply #11 on: January 24, 2018, 10:34:34 AM »
I do applaud what you are doing
but WU do seem committed to getting back to how they used to be for reliability
(see the thread about that)
so maybe see how that pans out before spending too much more time and resources on this?
although doing the survey first is a good idea

Thank you.

Well, from what heard, it seems not to be the first time, WU is "committed to fix issues". So who guarantees you that there will be no more issues in the future - even if they fix the current issues? The question is, what is the motivation behind WU? Are they just always going to be reactive to the issues continuously arising? Or are they keen on providing a good service which does not run into severe issues in the first place?

Offline WSWeather

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Re: WU Alternative?
« Reply #12 on: January 24, 2018, 11:10:12 AM »
So who guarantees you that there will be no more issues in the future - even if they fix the current issues?
Who guarantees that your (proposed) service would be any better?  Do we get our money back when it crashes?
The question is, what is the motivation behind WU?
Their motivation is the PWS data and to a lesser extent ad sales.  "Watson" ingests all of this (as well as weather data from dozens of other sources) and sells weather and climate data to corporate clients for big money.  IBM has no use for WU as a website, which is painfully evident over the last few months, but if they start losing en masse accurate PWS contributors like you find at this site it threatens their business model.

Offline jackman

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Re: WU Alternative?
« Reply #13 on: January 24, 2018, 12:00:15 PM »

The question is, what is the motivation behind WU?
Their motivation is the PWS data and to a lesser extent ad sales.  "Watson" ingests all of this (as well as weather data from dozens of other sources) and sells weather and climate data to corporate clients for big money.  IBM has no use for WU as a website, which is painfully evident over the last few months, but if they start losing en masse accurate PWS contributors like you find at this site it threatens their business model.

I totally agree!

Offline jas340

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Re: WU Alternative?
« Reply #14 on: January 24, 2018, 06:18:07 PM »
I would pay. My weather webcams are "my thing". If they could be displayed in HD I would pay. Low res images do not do justice to 1080p and 1440p cams. As far as WU goes. They suck. End of story. Being bought out by the Weather channel was a slow moving disaster that has picked up speed.

Offline webcams.travel

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Re: WU Alternative?
« Reply #15 on: January 25, 2018, 08:39:29 AM »
So who guarantees you that there will be no more issues in the future - even if they fix the current issues?
Who guarantees that your (proposed) service would be any better?  Do we get our money back when it crashes?
The question is, what is the motivation behind WU?
Their motivation is the PWS data and to a lesser extent ad sales.  "Watson" ingests all of this (as well as weather data from dozens of other sources) and sells weather and climate data to corporate clients for big money.  IBM has no use for WU as a website, which is painfully evident over the last few months, but if they start losing en masse accurate PWS contributors like you find at this site it threatens their business model.

A) Good point. Well, if you use lookr.com, you can at least see that the timelapse are always working (in case the webcam delivers new images, of course). We don't have 250.000 weather stations running, but at least 60.000 webcams.

B) OK, but still, they are motivated by not losing something. Avoiding something is a less weaker motivation than the one you have when going towards something, like creating something great and beautiful. Something you WANT to use, not something that NEEDS to work...
« Last Edit: January 25, 2018, 08:41:01 AM by webcams.travel »

Offline webcams.travel

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Re: WU Alternative?
« Reply #16 on: January 25, 2018, 08:43:55 AM »
I would pay. My weather webcams are "my thing". If they could be displayed in HD I would pay. Low res images do not do justice to 1080p and 1440p cams. As far as WU goes. They suck. End of story. Being bought out by the Weather channel was a slow moving disaster that has picked up speed.

Thank you, jas340.
That is exactly what we mean by creating something beautiful. Of course, we want your HD webcam to shine, not just to work!

PS: Do you know your average webcam image size (in KB) for your 1440p resolution?

Offline webcams.travel

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Re: WU Alternative?
« Reply #17 on: January 25, 2018, 08:48:00 AM »

The question is, what is the motivation behind WU?
Their motivation is the PWS data and to a lesser extent ad sales.  "Watson" ingests all of this (as well as weather data from dozens of other sources) and sells weather and climate data to corporate clients for big money.  IBM has no use for WU as a website, which is painfully evident over the last few months, but if they start losing en masse accurate PWS contributors like you find at this site it threatens their business model.

I totally agree!

 OK, but still, they are motivated by not losing something. Avoiding something is a less weaker motivation than the one you have when going towards something, like creating something great and beautiful. Something you WANT to use, not something that NEEDS to work...

Offline Intheswamp

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Re: WU Alternative?
« Reply #18 on: January 25, 2018, 09:06:37 AM »
It's an interesting idea, but for me I'm not interested in paying to provide something to a company for them to profit from.  That would definitely be a win-win for them and I don't fault the company from attempting it, but I don't see myself being involved in it.  There are several "free" reporting sites that appreciate and seek data to incorporate in their public websites.  These may not have web/weather camera feeds but I built my station to furnish data...my weather-cam was an afterthought. 

Also, starting from scratch and building a public presence/awareness of anything close to what WU has will take quiet a while...just as it took them to get to where they are at in that regard.  And, they didn't charge anything to host the data.  (I just looked and WU was founded 23 years ago.)

I wish you the best on this but I seriously don't see it working out if you charge people to upload their data to you.  Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm too narrow-minded, but....   :-k

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Offline webcams.travel

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Re: WU Alternative?
« Reply #19 on: January 25, 2018, 09:12:35 AM »
It's an interesting idea, but for me I'm not interested in paying to provide something to a company for them to profit from.  That would definitely be a win-win for them and I don't fault the company from attempting it, but I don't see myself being involved in it.  There are several "free" reporting sites that appreciate and seek data to incorporate in their public websites.  These may not have web/weather camera feeds but I built my station to furnish data...my weather-cam was an afterthought. 

Also, starting from scratch and building a public presence/awareness of anything close to what WU has will take quiet a while...just as it took them to get to where they are at in that regard.  And, they didn't charge anything to host the data.  (I just looked and WU was founded 23 years ago.)

I wish you the best on this but I seriously don't see it working out if you charge people to upload their data to you.  Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm too narrow-minded, but....   :-k


Thank you for your wishes! It will be hard and difficult to achieve a big user base, for sure. But that is part of the adventure we are looking forward to. And of course, we count on our future users to recommend us, because we do a really good job - that is our motivation ;)

Actually, we were quite (positively) surprised by the feedback we got so far from our survey!

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We will probably also incude a free offer with only the very basic features to address as many needs as possible.

PS: You can still give us your opinion about it. We still accept answers in our survey: https://goo.gl/cZ5DNs
« Last Edit: January 25, 2018, 09:20:41 AM by webcams.travel »

Offline Intheswamp

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Re: WU Alternative?
« Reply #20 on: January 25, 2018, 09:21:31 AM »
I've already given you my opinion, in more depth than the pie chart. ;)

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Offline webcams.travel

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Re: WU Alternative?
« Reply #21 on: January 25, 2018, 09:22:39 AM »
I've already given you my opinion, in more depth than the pie chart. ;)

Thank you! :)

Offline waiukuweather

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Re: WU Alternative?
« Reply #22 on: January 25, 2018, 12:31:32 PM »
how will you get the weather data?

Offline webcams.travel

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Re: WU Alternative?
« Reply #23 on: January 25, 2018, 01:15:38 PM »
how will you get the weather data?

You should be able to send your weather data to us the same way you do currently with WU. Are you currently using Meteobridge?

Offline waiukuweather

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Re: WU Alternative?
« Reply #24 on: January 25, 2018, 01:34:53 PM »
so you mean the data format would be the same as WU
but you would need to change the URL where the data is sent to?
so if what ever you use does not allow that to happen, then what?