Tweatfor: we are all a little weather forecasters
Crowdsourcing model confidently conquers a variety of areas. Ordinary users, like us, together do one big common thing and, often, the results are very impressive. A classic example is the navigation service for Waze motorists, from the category of an ordinary cartographic application with traffic signs very quickly turned into a social network with tens of millions of loyal users.
The mechanism of action is psychologically trouble-free - innovation predicts the consumer’s desire to participate in the joint creation of a product, because he wants to see his activity embodied as a result. The main task of the startup is here to find an interesting and important idea for society, in the implementation of which a wide and unlimited audience will take part. And then things go.
Startup Tweatfor, which posted its project to attract financing on our crowdfunding site VCStart , found such an idea, according to its author. And let it be, for its implementation there is still a lot to do, the undertaking itself evokes sympathy.
Tweatfor is a social weather monitoring service, thanks to which you can track weather changes in a certain period of time in a specific city. The source of data is the user audience, it is also the target one - the service will be useful to travelers, tourists and everyone whose life is associated with frequent trips.
By registering on the project’s website directly or through social networks, the user can view weather data according to the selected criteria, such as region, city, district, date, time. The search results are presented in the form of a message feed, in appearance resembling a Twitter service tweet feed. Registering together with determining the current location automatically gives the user the right, in addition to receiving information, to add it to the service feed himself.
The process of adding takes a few seconds. In addition to the geolocation, the user should mention the presence of precipitation (a choice from the available options), cloudiness, windiness, and other personal or visual impressions of the weather. The temperature is taken either automatically or indicated by the user based on data obtained from other sources, a thermometer outside the window or according to one’s own feelings. Since the temperature is not easy to determine from sensations with a high degree of accuracy, initially when adding a new weather state, the user is prompted to set the default temperature. Data is taken from popular meteorological services based on your current location, after which an average value is inserted in the corresponding service field. However, if you are sure that your feelings are more in line with the truth, You can use value substitution or enter data manually. You can add to this your comment, the format of which is similar to the length of the message on Twitter (143 characters), after which your information appears in the stream, where it becomes available for search and filtering and sharing on social networks.
Of course, this kind of social service cannot do without spam protection. In Tweatfor, it represents several filters, including a filter of obscene expressions, a filter of links, and a restriction on the temperature entered. It is worth noting that Tweatfor is not a weather forecasting service, it only monitors its status. However, forecasting as an experiment is also provided here. Data from user messages is analyzed, and based on this, a forecast for a day, week or month is generated for a specific location.
The main and most real model is the paid function of SMS informing. Data is collected by collecting weather conditions for a specific location. When critical messages are collected from the location of a critical mass, an SMS with a pre-prepared template is sent to the subscriber’s database indicating this geolocation (for example, “It's raining in Moscow, do not forget to take an umbrella”). The second way is symbolically paid access to the weather news feed subject to high attendance. The flip side of the coin is the motivation to get free access for those who made more than 50 weather reports in their region. In addition, it is planned to sell traffic and advertising spots for resources of a similar theme and a paid application for iOS and Android.
The last probable, according to the author of the project, methods, though so far in doubt. At the launch stage, it is still far from the effective sale of advertising spots, and a mobile application, on the contrary, would make sense to use as a crowdsourcing tool for collecting data and expanding the user network, which provides for a free model of its distribution.
The creator of the project, a young IT entrepreneur from Nizhny Tagil, Alexander Anishchenko, believes that his weather monitoring service can become part of regional information services. Such services use at their core a network of informants that provide data for customers on up-to-date information on key requests - weather conditions, queues at gas stations, traffic information, queues in stores, etc.
The mechanism of action is psychologically trouble-free - innovation predicts the consumer’s desire to participate in the joint creation of a product, because he wants to see his activity embodied as a result. The main task of the startup is here to find an interesting and important idea for society, in the implementation of which a wide and unlimited audience will take part. And then things go.
Startup Tweatfor, which posted its project to attract financing on our crowdfunding site VCStart , found such an idea, according to its author. And let it be, for its implementation there is still a lot to do, the undertaking itself evokes sympathy.
Tweatfor is a social weather monitoring service, thanks to which you can track weather changes in a certain period of time in a specific city. The source of data is the user audience, it is also the target one - the service will be useful to travelers, tourists and everyone whose life is associated with frequent trips.
How it works
By registering on the project’s website directly or through social networks, the user can view weather data according to the selected criteria, such as region, city, district, date, time. The search results are presented in the form of a message feed, in appearance resembling a Twitter service tweet feed. Registering together with determining the current location automatically gives the user the right, in addition to receiving information, to add it to the service feed himself.
The process of adding takes a few seconds. In addition to the geolocation, the user should mention the presence of precipitation (a choice from the available options), cloudiness, windiness, and other personal or visual impressions of the weather. The temperature is taken either automatically or indicated by the user based on data obtained from other sources, a thermometer outside the window or according to one’s own feelings. Since the temperature is not easy to determine from sensations with a high degree of accuracy, initially when adding a new weather state, the user is prompted to set the default temperature. Data is taken from popular meteorological services based on your current location, after which an average value is inserted in the corresponding service field. However, if you are sure that your feelings are more in line with the truth, You can use value substitution or enter data manually. You can add to this your comment, the format of which is similar to the length of the message on Twitter (143 characters), after which your information appears in the stream, where it becomes available for search and filtering and sharing on social networks.
Of course, this kind of social service cannot do without spam protection. In Tweatfor, it represents several filters, including a filter of obscene expressions, a filter of links, and a restriction on the temperature entered. It is worth noting that Tweatfor is not a weather forecasting service, it only monitors its status. However, forecasting as an experiment is also provided here. Data from user messages is analyzed, and based on this, a forecast for a day, week or month is generated for a specific location.
Possible ways to monetize Tweatfor
The main and most real model is the paid function of SMS informing. Data is collected by collecting weather conditions for a specific location. When critical messages are collected from the location of a critical mass, an SMS with a pre-prepared template is sent to the subscriber’s database indicating this geolocation (for example, “It's raining in Moscow, do not forget to take an umbrella”). The second way is symbolically paid access to the weather news feed subject to high attendance. The flip side of the coin is the motivation to get free access for those who made more than 50 weather reports in their region. In addition, it is planned to sell traffic and advertising spots for resources of a similar theme and a paid application for iOS and Android.
The last probable, according to the author of the project, methods, though so far in doubt. At the launch stage, it is still far from the effective sale of advertising spots, and a mobile application, on the contrary, would make sense to use as a crowdsourcing tool for collecting data and expanding the user network, which provides for a free model of its distribution.
Prospects
The creator of the project, a young IT entrepreneur from Nizhny Tagil, Alexander Anishchenko, believes that his weather monitoring service can become part of regional information services. Such services use at their core a network of informants that provide data for customers on up-to-date information on key requests - weather conditions, queues at gas stations, traffic information, queues in stores, etc.
Alexander, how did the idea of creating Tweatfor come about?
“Once I was sitting at a laptop and suddenly it started to rain. At the same time, the weather forecast did not say anything about this, and I thought it would be cool to know about such sudden changes in the weather. As a result, the idea was implemented in a demo version of Tweatfor service, in which the main functions are implemented. ”
What stage is the project currently at?
“For the end user and investor, there is a ready-made demo version, a video review of working with it, and a description of the main functionality, there is a website for the“ clean ”version of the service. At the moment, a team is being formed. Since this is my first project, I encounter difficulties and a lack of understanding of some issues, etc. But everything is resolved, and I am sure that Tweatfor will soon become a full-fledged service. ”
We also hope for this and present you this startup as a possible investment target among dozens of other projects hosted on our platform . You can buy a stake in Tweatfor here .