Here's somebody who's working just a little bit too hard at the whole pair-a-dimes shifting thingy: The WeatherBug Corporate Blog asks:
"Why would anyone want to develop an application with WeatherBug data, you ask? Simply put, WeatherBug is the only place to get live weather conditions from locations in your neighborhood..."
Then, the train jumps the track...
Here's the extended explanation:
"This may not seem like that big deal, but suppose you wanted to write an application to control the thermostat in your home or to automatically turn on the lawn sprinkler when certain conditions existed. Would you want to control these devices based on weather information from an airport that was 20 or 30 miles away with data that updates only few times an hour, or would you want to have weather information that was from a local school or neighborhood location with commercial quality instruments that updates every 1-2 seconds as the weather changes? The answer seems pretty clear to me, but I think that people will not understand the value of WeatherBug data until we give developers a chance to see how live and local our weather information is, and how much more accurate it is than other weather information sources."
So what's wrong with that picture? Well, if I am going to the trouble to write a application to control my sprinklers, for example, why wouldn't I go the trivial extra step of incorporating my own moisture/rain gauge into the home automation system? I mean why would I go to all the trouble for my app to call out to weatherbug to find out if it has rained in the 20-mile radius of my yard, when I could just call out to the gauge IN MY YARD that tells me how wet it IS NOW!
Good luck with that!
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