RealTime Weather From Real People On Dubai-Based Metwit.com
Are you wondering what the weather
is like now in a certain location you are headed to? Are you trying
to avoid carrying that umbrella and ending up not needing it?
Metwit.com is
a social weather application that mashes up social realtime weather
information from multiple sources to provide you with accurate,
hyper-local weather conditions from real people.
Founded by four young Italian entrepreneurs, who were accepted to
the latest round acceleration at Dubai-based SeedStartUp, Metwit
takes geolocated information from Twitter, Instagram and the Metwit
web application and displays it on maps and feeds to offer an
instant, crowdsourced view of the current weather information.
"Everyday there is a constant buzz of people talking about the
weather, especially in the case of environmental
catastrophes. We want all this information to find one home," says
Michele Ruini, co-founder and CEO as well as UX and idea designer
at Metwit.
To scan this information and list it on the maps, the Metwit
system, whose name is derived from the combination of "Meteorology"
and "Twitter," relies mainly on Hashtags (#) that reference the
weather on Twitter and Instagram, directly converting them into
icons on the website.
Ruini identifies Metwit's target audience as "people who have
already checked the forecast but want to know more about the
weather in realtime, which weather channels can't do." (Or perhaps
don't do well on mobile in the region?) The team is also planning
on implementing weather forecasts via weather providers in Italy,
with the purpose of covering both forecast and realtime
conditions.
The team is not thinking much about revenue streams for the time
being, relying on the initial funding they received from the
SeedStartup program and focusing on building a big user base to
make marketing and advertisement more efficient when the
application fully launches in the near future. So far the platform
has attracted over 10 thousand visitors since testing began in
December 2011, and plans to grow bigger by relying on viral
marketing through Facebook, Twitter as they spread animations and
funny videos.
We've noticed lately that due to the lack of marketing budget, many
websites are relying on "funny" elements to attract more users,
like the crocodile featured in the Crokodeals.com logo, and the
comical small weather icons on Metwit. Spreading funny and
shareable icons, logos and animation videos seems to be a trend.
But, is it an efficient one? We can only wait and see…
A new function will be added within the next two weeks to the
mobile application, which would alert users if someone within 50km
is tweeting information about the weather. So unless you are
seeking on the spot realtime weather information, this service
would not be "serving" you much. But couldn't you check realtime
weather within a 50km radius by simply looking up at the sky? As
you stare at your iPhone instead, could using Metwit then be the
ultimate expression of hopeless addiction to technology?