Weathermob
For crying out cloud. Weathermob

Press

Weathermob in the news: Techcrunch, Mashable and more…

As v 1.2 of Weathermob rolled out, the press coverage rolled in: Techcrunch ‘Weathermob allows anyone to be a weather reporter. The app mashes up real-time meteorological data, photo and video sharing to allow users to report on and share the weather in their current location.” Mashable “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.” Talking Mobile “Recently updated, it’s the ideal time to check out part weather, part social network app Weathermob. It informs you of exactly what weather to expect and this information is reinforced by real people’s experiences of the weather at that moment.” Computer Science Zone “The app is very user-friendly, allowing users to earn points and titles for talking about weather reports, sending videos/pictures and following other users. If you report enough you have the chance to become the Bureau Chief for your zipcode/area.” Acknowledgement “What makes Weathermob more interesting is the way in which it helps the user put together an engaging story. It takes the weather report – a basic utility – and makes it more interesting by helping users create stories by writing headlines and showing how the weather makes them feel. Users can then express these stories via Facebook and Twitter which always helps in spreading a message.” The Social Penguin “Weathermob is different – it wants you to be the weatherman/woman. The app allows you to create a weather report while on the go, meaning you can let other users know the situation within your geo-location at any time. Why would you bother, I hear you ask? For a start, the app is beautiful to look at and it is actually good fun.” Written on Friday, May 4th, 2012 by Weathermob

SXSW, the New York Times and the BBC World Service

Weathermob was recently at SXSW in Austin, Texas. Right on cue the weather played its part with torrential rain a talking point for everyone! We took part in the App.Net showcase alongside a fine selection of new and re-launched apps including Fashism, Cause.It, GAIN Fitness, City Maps, PayDragon, 100Plus and Park Me. App.Net has an overview of the showcase on their blog. The New York Times Bits blog featured Weathermob during SXSW, saying: “Weathermob is taking off”. While in Austin we also spoke to the BBC World Service and were featured in their programme Click (you can listen here). Other recent press coverage includes: Macworld “Visually, the app is very appealing; the interface is clean and easy to navigate. Even the in-app graphics—though a little cheesy—are fun and look nice within the app. But the best part, for me, was looking at the photos other users had shared. There’s something very compelling about being able to see other people’s weather photos, and I enjoyed being able to search for updates from very specific locations, such as different neighborhoods within a city.” iPhoneAppCafé “Pros: Great graphics to make the weather fun. Allows followers for a social network feel. Share your own photos and videos. Show off to your friends, be a weatherman (or woman). It’s Free! Its cute!” The Best of Mobile Technology “Weathermob is a great iPhone app. It basically enables its users to share thoughts, videos and photos of the weather in real-time. If you are a weather buff and always want to stay updated on weather conditions and forecasts on different places then Weathermob is your app.” Written on Monday, March 19th, 2012 by Weathermob

More Weathermob Press Coverage

AppAholicsAnon “Very cool, looks slick and it’s free – so a must try for anyone who has ever had anything to say about the weather… which is everyone, right?.” WSJ online “There’s a new free app out for iPhone that has weather nerds the world over rejoicing. Weathermob is a mashup of Twitter and Instagram, where weather lovers can share anything and everything about how the atmosphere is affecting your day. Cat got lost in a snow bank? Post it. Broke your 16th umbrella of the week? Share a photo. If you’re feeling social, this is as good a medium as any to channel your best John Denver and partake.” Apple’n’Apps “Weathermob is such a brilliant idea, and it’s executed wonderfully on the iPhone. You will love posting your own reports while reading others reports from around you.” App-Score “The layout and UI of the app is fantastic, the colours look great and are extremely easy on the eyes. The social aspect of the app also adds to the fun of the app. Never before has an app enabled people to create an instant weather report where they are to share with friends…. The entire app is a joy to use and look at. Creating an account couldn’t be any easier and having a social network around the weather is certainly something I’ve never seen before and the more people that know about it the better. This could easily work as a social network. Kudos to the developers. If you download any apps today I’d really recommend this.” MSN “This is the best app for what is called ‘social weather forecasting’ to date, meaning it is based on real-time updates, photos and videos from people on the ground, which makes it more accurate. The ultimate app for trainee meteorologists everywhere!” UX Magazine “A lot of weather apps allow users to share the weather report with Facebook, Twitter, and so on, but what’s interesting with Weathermob is the manner in which it helps the user put together an engaging story. This is a great example how to make a utility application engaging. It takes a basic function—viewing a weather report—and helps users create whole stories around local weather to express themselves… Among other things, Weathermob is a good example of designing with users’ emotions in mind. As humans, we want to connect with real people. UX designers need to bring out the app’s personality to engage people emotionally. Using a conversational tone like “For crying out loud, what’s your weather” helps people relate to an app as if it were just another person.” Written on Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 by Weathermob

The Sunshine State leads the way in the weather-happiness stakes, but is closely followed by the Windy City according to users of new app Weathermob.

Given their weather-based nicknames, it may come as no surprise that Miami and Tampa, FL and Chicago, IL are the top three cities on the Weathermob Happiness Index. Results from a new iPhone weather app, which asks users how they feel about the weather, give a revealing new picture of the US’s happiest towns and cities, and show that weather happiness isn’t always where you’d expect.

The hot streets of Houston, TX are failing to crack a smile as it ranks as one of the two US cities least happy about their weather, whilst the unpredictable climate of San Francisco keeps the locals on their feet and feeling dandy as it sits in 5th place.

Internationally, the US rates as one of the happiest countries in the world when talking about the weather. A big surprise is that the ever-gloomy UK rates as happier! The beachfront lifestyle of Australia and Brazil, however, fails to put them above the US on the index.

Weathermob has been downloaded over 55,000 times in just one month since its launch, recruiting budding weather reporters across the US. As winter weather settles in across parts of the country, Weathermob reporters have been submitting photos, videos and reports of how they’re feeling about their weather.

In order, the cities happiest about their weather over the past fortnight are:

1 – Miami, FL; 2 – Tampa, FL; 3 – Chicago, IL; 4 – Atlanta, GA; 5 – San Francisco, CA; 6 – Phoenix, AZ; 7 – Dallas, TX; 8 – Boston, MA; 9 – San Diego, CA; 10 – Las Vegas, NV; 11 – Los Angeles, CA; 12 – Baltimore, MD; 13 – New York, NY; 14 – Seattle, WA; 15 – Washington DC; 16 – Minneapolis, MN; 17 – St Louis, MO; 18 – Philadelphia, PA; 19 – Houston, TX; 20 – Detroit, MI.

The full list of US cities is displayed in the accompanying infographic – also showing where the US ranks in the world.

Julia LeStage, Founder and CEO of Weathermob, commented: “For the first time with a weather service, you, the people in the weather, get to say how the weather’s making you feel. It’s great to see the US so high in the international happiness rankings. Within the US, temperature doesn’t seem to determine how people are feeling about the weather with the permanently sunny LA sitting mid-table and wintry Chicago, IL, nearly at the top. Let’s see whether the holidays bring a change in the weather and the mood of the nation.”

Weathermob is a London and Boston-based start-up behind the new iPhone app for the world’s favourite conversation starter – the weather. Available free from the App Store, the Weathermob app is designed to make talking about the weather as social an online experience as it is already for the millions of people who use it to open conversations with strangers, colleagues, friends and family in real life.

The app is currently in the top ten weather apps of 72 app stores around the world and has proved popular in the US with thousands of reports being submitted each day.

Weathermob is a free download from the Apple App Store.

Written on Monday, December 19th, 2011 by Weathermob

First week reviews and press coverage for Weathermob

Cult of Mac: “Overall it’s a cool little app, and should go down a storm (ahem) here in the UK, where as you probably know, we never talk about anything else.” 4.5 / 5 stars Macintude: “Beautiful, social weather forecasting” Wired.co.uk “…the potential of having a network of hundreds of thousands of amateur, but interested, meteorological observers able to report live, from the places where most people are collected, directly into computer models forecasting for the coming days, is too big to ignore” AppAdvice.com “Weathermob takes this idea of weather small talk to an entirely new level, and it’s actually a delight to use” Killer Startups “And the site’s got a really well-developed social side to it, as you can follow family members and friends who are traveling abroad, and see what kind of weather they’re getting without even speaking to them” and from the App Store: “Weathermob is basically the love child that resulted from an affair between Instagram and the iOS weather App. It is absolutely beautifully designed, gives what I’ve found to be very accurate weather forecasts & has a social aspect that it doesn’t force upon the user (beyond the initial insistence on signing up for a Weathermob account). You can report as much or as little of your local weather (and thoughts on that weather) as you’d like, you can follow other “Weathermobbers” but you don’t have to. For someone who really enjoys following the weather, this App is both informative and fun.” 5/5 stars – Andreas Booher Written on Thursday, December 1st, 2011 by Weathermob

London/Boston-based start-up creates Weathermob, a social network for the world’s favorite conversation starter – the weather

Reports come in from over 35 countries in first three days after app’s release as a free download on the App Store For immediate release Weathermob, a London/Boston-based start-up supported by original investors in ASOS.com and lastminute.com, has launched a social network for the weather. Available free for iPhone, Weathermob is an app designed to make talking about the weather as social an online experience as it is already is for the millions of people who use it to open conversations with strangers, colleagues, friends and family in real life. Weathermob debuted as a free download on the App Store last week, and in its first few days has seen reports from across the US and UK, as well as more than 30 countries, including Brazil, India, Japan, Australia, Dubai, Mexico and even from the Himalayas, with a picture report posted from Nepal. Weathermob is a social weather app. It mashes up real-time meteorological data, location-based services, photo sharing and user sentiment to create an app that enables users to report on the weather right now in their local area and share it with their friends while expressing how it’s making them feel. Weathermob’s users hold the key to determining how many people are really only happy when it rains and whether a city’s cheerfulness is directly proportional to how many sunny days it gets a year. Weathermob is publishing daily mood rankings of major US and UK cities via the app and its Twitter account @weathermobapp. Early results have seen Bristol as the happiest city in the UK, and Philadephia and Miami vying for happiest city in the US. Founded and created by former Channel 4 (UK) executive Julia LeStage, media magnate, tech investor and Chairman of ASOS.com, Lord Waheed Alli, experienced CTO Ben Griffiths, veteran tech investor Tori Hackett, social media specialist Frank Lampen, and brand guru Adge Gittins, Weathermob brings together investment, creativity and technical expertise from London and Boston, two world cities with lots of weather. A fact brought home to the founders as Weathermob’s beta testers grappled with the freak snowstorm that hit New England in October. “We discovered that users were reporting the storm in really creative and personal ways, often just as much about the way it was affecting them as the weather itself,” said Weathermob, CEO Julia LeStage. “We saw just
as many pictures and videos of cosy log fires, hot chocolate and red wine
as we did reports of snow and ice. It was far more fun – and much more meaningful – than only watching someone in a TV studio and suit, talk at me about cold fronts.” This experience convinced the founders that a social weather app like Weathermob has the potential to become a daily habit for a global audience. “The stereotype might be that only Brits are obsessed with the weather, but the truth is that the weather is one of those universal things that everybody’s got to deal with. So we’re confident that this is probably the first social network on which everyone – whether (pun intended) it’s your mother or your neighbour – always has something to say.” Weathermob is a free download from the Apple App Store.