TWC Acquires....Wunderground!?!?!?!

[Mike M]

Why are almost all of you assuming doom and gloom from this deal?   Things like this happen all the time with private companies, and maybe this whole deal won't be so bad after all.  At least give it a chance before we all judge that it will be a complete failure.

Sorry I took it too seriously last night... it wasn't my best of days already and this really put me down. But still, I would expect the API to become proprietary since TWC had done that with weather.com a few months back. And this will most definitely make parsing data nearly impossible for things like the 4000 emulator, and other projects we've been working on, since there aren't really any other free APIs out there anymore.

[TWCCraig]

Hmm... Powerful earthquakes, flooding rains, extreme record shattering heatwaves, out of control wildfires, TWCC taking over Wunderground, may be they were right about 2012. 

[TWCToday]

I think most of you guys are taking this a little too personally... It's just an acquisition... It's not the end of the world.

Well said.



I think the rather interesting question that comes from this discussion is if APIs for Weather should be free in the first place. In the early days of the net and weather.com it may sense to try and get developers to use your data. The more of it out there, the more your band was distributed. Now it doesn't make sense to do so from a cost-benefit ratio. The web is increasingly becoming the primary source for weather data. Any sensible company would realize that it can't keep offering free services to apps/sites/etc that draw traffic away from their own site.

[Zach]

Wunderground's default API now requires signup and is capped at every tier possible.. however if you can do some digging, you can find their obsolete and free API. I use their obsolete API currently (my CC pages and my signature here, for example), but if you're good with PHP you can modify how the data is parsed. The only real difference I notice between their newer API and their obsolete API (in terms of the data being parsed) is that the newer API parses the nighttime icons in their CC API, whilst the older and obsolete API does not.

[Nathan - a.k.a. NWRGeek]

I sense that things will remain the same for 1-3 years, but then wunderground.com will simply be turned into a redirect to weather.com

Hopefully if that happens TWC will let users run a live NWR stream like Wunderground does, or EAS fans (myself included) are going to be angry because we wouldn't be able to get streaming alerts anymore!

[TWCToday]

I sense that things will remain the same for 1-3 years, but then wunderground.com will simply be turned into a redirect to weather.com

Hopefully if that happens TWC will let users run a live NWR stream like Wunderground does, or EAS fans (myself included) are going to be angry because we wouldn't be able to get streaming alerts anymore!

Many forecast offices broadcast their streams online already. Its a nice feature but sadly one that is becoming outdated and doesn't impact that many people.

[Zach]

Many forecast offices broadcast their streams online already. Its a nice feature but sadly one that is becoming outdated and doesn't impact that many people.

Really?! Because even on the NWS stream page, a lot of the streams link to Wunderground.

[Nathan - a.k.a. NWRGeek]

I sense that things will remain the same for 1-3 years, but then wunderground.com will simply be turned into a redirect to weather.com

Hopefully if that happens TWC will let users run a live NWR stream like Wunderground does, or EAS fans (myself included) are going to be angry because we wouldn't be able to get streaming alerts anymore!

Many forecast offices broadcast their streams online already. Its a nice feature but sadly one that is becoming outdated and doesn't impact that many people.

You're confusing those with the Wunderground ones. The one you are referring to is the one where ROUTINE product mp3 files are found on some National Weather Service office sites. Full live streams can be found on Wunderground.

Many forecast offices broadcast their streams online already. Its a nice feature but sadly one that is becoming outdated and doesn't impact that many people.

Really?! Because even on the NWS stream page, a lot of the streams link to Wunderground.

Yep. He confused the routine mp3 files with the Wunderground stream.