Weddar Crowd Sourced Weather App for iPhone: Emphasis on "Crowd"
Mashable’s view of a crowd sourced iPhone weather app is a lot sunnier than mine.
Who Needs a Weatherman? People-Powered Meteorology App Hits iPhone
Weddar is a free iPhone app that uses crowd sourcing to provide a broad view of local weather. People report in using pre-defined categories ranging from Perfect to Hell (hotter than hot) to Freezing. The apps quirkiness goes beyond its weather categories. When I tried to request a report from a town 30 miles away, I was told it was too far. So, I asked for a report for an area about 5 miles away. You can see in the first screenshot that this was considered too far away too.
The problem is that there is no crowd in my area that has contributed data to this crowd sourced app. The result is no information for anywhere in my area.
Pulling back on Weddar map (a Google Maps mashup) and then drilling down on various sections of the U.S., I noted that its crowd sourced weather is mostly in metropoliton areas where there are, how should I put this, actual crowds using the app.
Weddar has a great idea. However, it will not be useful until a lot of people start using it. And, even then, it will be most useful in densely populated areas. We shouldn’t plan on throwing away automated weather sensors just yet.
