The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.
First the weather, then the world
: My son just blogged about Google’s new weather feature: search on “weather” and a place and you get the forecast. So who needs Weather.com? This is how Google will attack every commoditized content niche, I predict: scores, stocks, prices, news….
Absolutely. All though I wonder how the actual creators of all this content will act in the long run if google gets too powerful.
I don’t know the ins and outs of this industry, but dont the other “portal” sites pay for their content? Isnt a market being messed with here somehow? Can someone smarter on this stuff please elaborate?
I want it integrated in Google Maps. Beta, of course.
Anyone read Ilium from Dan Simmons? There is a great scene where a character accidently activates an implant that shows him ALL OF THE DATA in the world. He becomes mesmerized by watching a tree suck water up to the leaves like a giant soda straw. This book took place hundreds of years in the future, but it looks like Google will overload us in about 10 years. What a great time to be alive!
-Donut
My understanding is that ALL weather data, whether on Yahoo, the NY Times or your local news, originates from the National Weather Service. Weather reporters, essentially, are just talking heads using the same data from this national bureau of real meteorologists. My guess is that similar to copyright law, you can’t “own” the content of weather forcasts, just the expression.
Actually, Michael that’s not quite right. Accuweather gathers a lot of their data. Also, the only way that a weather reporter is a talking head is if they just take the forecast portion of the NWS data and relay it. There’s a big difference between that and taking the raw data from the NWS, some international sources and your own local readings and analyzing it yourself to produce a forecast. The latter approach is far from being a talking head.
Or if you use Firefox, you could just download their in-browser weather plugin, which I’ve always found handy – no need to even use Google.
Thanks Jim – I stand corrected.
/me agrees with Greg
the ForecastFox (formerly WeatherFox) plugin is exceptionally wonderful. All I need to do is glance down to where I have it display the weather for the next several days and I’ve an idea of what the current weather is and what’s in store.
IMHO it’s the best extension ever.
There are a bunch of things like this on Google.
As for stock quotes, search on a ticker symbol. The first link, amusingly, is often to the Yahoo Finance page.
So how long until the Shopping Mall Marxists start burning the Google Guys in effigy at the next WTO protest?
Maybe they’ll start calling it GULAG-gle, they are really witty after all.
Google is the greatest to me. Since they put out Google Suggest then maps, and this. I love it more and more everyday.
Technology is also allowing small-scale efforts to get better weather data than the regionalized NWS provides. Here in the mountains of North Carolina we have raysweather.com which was started by a professor (I think) at Appalachian State University using his own equipment, as he found the available local weather forecasts inadequate. Anyone know of other such efforts? I think this sort of thing is pretty cool.
I’ve spent a lot of time in recent months trying to figure out how to organize a web site that can’t be outflanked by Google (or Yahoo or another search portal).
The largest percentage of our readers come through Google searches, and I’m well aware that if they wanted to, they could launch an entertainment/TV listing/review function that would destroy us.
At what point does Google hit the “We’re the new Microsoft” part of their growth cycle?
. So who needs Weather.com? This is how Google will attack every commoditized content niche..
I agree with this in general. However, in the event that a weather service offers more than is available simply by “reflecting” NWS forecasts, then a generic service provided by Google isn’t going to be really cutting into their business.
An example of such an organization is http://www.accuweather.com
Many people depend on forecasting not only to know what to where, but because their business depends on it. This is as true for transportation as the more obvious example of farming. I hadn’t heard of raysweather.com, but it offers another case in point.
I imagine the same line of reasoning can be applied in droves regarding analysis of stocks and corporate performance. Google will eventually beat the weak, easily duplicated services, due to their superior branding and packaging skills. If the other sites are offering services that a gilded reflector can’t provide, and if these services have real value added, they have little to sweat from Google.
Google’s creating the next command line interface.
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