Custom Weather Alerts Straight to Your Inbox

Advertisement
By Jenna Wortham, The New York Times | Updated: 26 July 2014 11:41 IST
Custom Weather Alerts Straight to Your Inbox

Every morning when I wake up, there's a peppy text message waiting in my inbox, letting me know that the summer storms are over, and that the sky will be blue and clear for the day.

And each afternoon, as I am preparing to head home from work, another message arrives, telling me to expect a cool, dry evening, one that might be best suited for a light jacket.

Both messages come courtesy of a new service, Poncho, that delivers customized weather updates via text or email.

There are hundreds - perhaps thousands - of weather applications available for smartphones, laptops and tablets. And there is no shortage of ways to find the day's forecast by turning on the radio or television.

Advertisement

But Kuan Huang, one of Poncho's creators, is betting that people will use his service for its convenience, and the customized information it provides. Poncho asks its new users questions about their daily habits, like what time they wake up, how they commute to work, whether they have pets they need to take out, and whether users prefer to receive their daily weather reports via text or email. From there, Poncho builds out a schedule of alerts and updates to deliver.

"I wanted to make something that pushes information to people and they don't have to check it," he said.

Advertisement

The app, which was developed at Betaworks, an organization behind Digg.com, was released last April and still has a relatively small following, with users in the tens of thousands. That is partly because the service is available only in New York and Boston. But the app's five-person team is working on expanding to a handful of major U.S. cities this year.

(Also See: Researchers Use Smartphone App to Study Factors Affecting Gut Bacteria)

Huang has been encouraged by the early response, and indicators of momentum. For example, few users have unsubscribed, which Huang sees as a sign that people like the service.

Advertisement

He also thinks that people will be won over by Poncho's personality, which is chipper and occasionally sassy. Poncho's voice comes from a team of human editors who write the messages. They often add humor, Internet slang and the occasional graphic to spice up the alerts.

In addition to weather, Poncho can give tailored information about traffic and train delays, as well as others details like the daily pollen count.

Huang joined Betaworks last January as part of its hacker-in-residence program, which recruits talented engineers to experiment with different ideas and concepts in the hopes of devising a service that could eventually become a stand-alone company. The effort has given rise to Dots, a popular mobile game, and Giphy, a search engine for animated images called GIFs.

Huang had no experience in weather. He heard that the Betaworks team was interested in a better forecast experience, which struck a chord with Huang, who almost always got his daily report from his mother. She knew his schedule and would tell him if it was going to rain or if he should bundle up. He originally wanted to name the service "WeatherMom," but his team persuaded him to choose something a little more mysterious and sleek.

(Also See: Microsoft Launches Climatology App for Android and Windows Phone)

Huang worked with data scientists at Betaworks to build a service that pulls weather information from 10 sources and can aggregate ZIP codes with similar forecasts into groups, which helps minimize the number of messages to be written each day.

The company has also been testing ads on the service. When the pollen count is particularly high, for example, Poncho shows an advertisement for allergy medicine at Duane Reade, a chain of New York drugstores.

Eventually, the service could expand its advertising platform and let brands target ads based on conditions or the season.

But Huang says the company's priority is scaling Poncho nationally.

"We want to roll it out city-by-city and keep learning what works," he said.

© 2014, The New York Times News Service

 

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.

Advertisement

Related Stories

Popular Mobile Brands
  1. Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Available at Lower Price on Amazon and Flipkart
  2. Nothing Phone 2 Update Brings Privacy Space, Nothing Gallery Features
  3. Coinbase Might Take $400 Million Hit in Reimbursement Costs After Breach
  4. Oppo A5 5G, Oppo A5, Oppo A5x Listed Online; Specifications Revealed
  5. Microsoft Could Launch These Surface PCs With Arm-Based AMD Chips in 2026
  1. Ironheart OTT Release Date: When and Where to Watch Marvel’s Upcoming Mini Series?
  2. NASA’s Europa Clipper Captures Stunning Infrared Image of Mars
  3. Captain America: Brave New World OTT Release Date: When and Where to Watch Marvel Movie Online?
  4. Iyer in Arabia Now Streaming on SunNXT: What You Need to Know About Shine Tom Chacko, Arfaz Iqbal Starrer Malayalam Comedy Film
  5. Manamey Tamil Version Now Streaming on Aha: Everything You Need to Know
  6. WazirX Reimbursement Plan Faces Delay as Singapore Court Extends Existing Moratorium to June 6
  7. Coinbase Faces Up to $400 Million Reimbursement Cost After Recent Cyberattack
  8. Urban Genesis Smartwatch With 1.45-inch AMOLED Display, Up to 7 Days of Battery Life Launched in India
  9. Stellar Blade PC Launch Set for June 11, PC System Requirements Revealed
  10. Realme GT 7 Dream Edition India Launch Confirmed; Will Arrive Alongside Realme GT 7
Gadgets 360 is available in
Download Our Apps
Available in Hindi
© Copyright Red Pixels Ventures Limited 2025. All rights reserved.