Friday, February 26, 2010

Successful Innovative Companies: Volume 18

The Successful Innovative Company of the week is: The Weather Channel.
What they do right: give weather information all day every day. You will be hard pressed to ever catch me watching The Weather Channel but I recognize something innovative and different when I see it.

Can you imagine what it must have been like when they were proposing this? Some younger guys standing in a room with some older guys and the question coming from the older guys, "So, you're just going to give weather forecasts... all the time." However, weather is kind of a big thing. Outdoor activities and travel all depend on the weather. Weather can destroy buildings and strand communities.

As far as the details, local on the 8s is pretty cool. Every ten minutes they give two minutes of the local weather forecast at :08, :18, :28...

I also like storm stories. They show short programs about historical weather events like hurricanes and blizzards. They also have an iPhone app which is better for weather than the weather app that came with my iPhone. It has nice semi-detailed weather forecasts and all of the weather information I ever need.

What they could improve: Their website is not my favorite for weather information. I prefer Weather Underground because it has more information when you type in a zip code or city. I like the fact that so much information is on the page. You can just scroll down instead of clicking on this link and that link. I like information that is available in one place without having to go down the rabbit hole to find everything. Perhaps some people like to click on links to find information but I click on enough links as it is.

However, when it comes to television The Weather Channel is number one. I can not think of a single thing that I would do to their station to make it better.

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