Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog

Just my .02 on the whole thing...

1. Having a media warhorse with the power of TWC could only mean good things for this site.

2. History shows that when TWCC buys someone, they generally allow the people who are in charge to stay there.

3. For those that feel the AGW/Climate Change stuff is going to be suppressed, just stop it already. For one, Dr. Masters will not allow it to be suppressed and for another TWCC, TWC are both owned by NBC, which has a history of tilt towards the Global Warming side of the spectrum anyway. Nothing will change there.

4. Everyone LIGHTEN UP. Sheesh. It's the 4th of July, the tropics are quiet. Enjoy yourselves.

I'll go back to lurking now.

Had to check to see if April 1st. Sadly no.

I've been a mostly lurker on this blog since the blog feature was released, and been cruising around the net and for over 20 years now. When something like this happens, it usually marks the begin of the decline into corporate mediocrity and irrelevance for a community. People will slowly realize they aren't satisfied with their lowest common denominator, and probably increasingly frequent guest blog content. When you find a new community, don't mention it here. Don't make it a competition. Just let this one die on the vine, leaving the rabble to stay here. It's better that way.

In case it isn't clear, TWC isn't buying WU for "synergy". It's buying out the competition before it becomes a threat to it's business.

I hope WU stays the same, I do not like TWC any longer as you cannot get the weather when you need it. They are too busy putting on reality weather shows and instead of reporting the weather.
If WU stays the same Im Happy.

Quoting GeorgiaStormz:


dude, everyone here said it was going to TX too so.
And btw, they are staying separate dont worry

Good God, do you suck up much??

Quoting roflcopter:
Just my .02 on the whole thing...

1. Having a media warhorse with the power of TWC could only mean good things for this site.

2. History shows that when TWCC buys someone, they generally allow the people who are in charge to stay there.

3. For those that feel the AGW/Climate Change stuff is going to be suppressed, just stop it already. For one, Dr. Masters will not allow it to be suppressed and for another TWCC, TWC are both owned by NBC, which has a history of tilt towards the Global Warming side of the spectrum anyway. Nothing will change there.

4. Everyone LIGHTEN UP. Sheesh. It's the 4th of July, the tropics are quiet. Enjoy yourselves.

I'll go back to lurking now.

Maybe i misunderstood...i didnt think Dr Masters still owned WU

Quoting NavarreMark:
All the gnashing of teeth makes me think of fishin.

Speaking of which, theres a good weather window offshore of the FL Panhandle. We have from 7/1-7/10 when the red snapper and gag grouper seasons overlap. Debby also blew a whole bunch of palegics into our area. Good time to do some trolling at the edge, elbow and nipple and some bottom fishin on the way in.

STAY SAFE !!! BE SAFE!!!

And Catch Your Limit

As it says at the bottom of the previous page, New Blog

Wow. Take a 36-hour break and THIS happens....

Make no mistake: TWC's purchase is the beginning of the end for Weather Underground. (Remember Earthlink's acquisition of Mindspring? What a disaster). Weather Underground's page is a much easier place to get UN-pre-digested information quickly. TWC's page is cumbersome to use and has a very 20th Century feel. I mourn the loss of Weather Underground. I've been a loyal member for many years, and now I get slapped. Not good.

Quoting Kasper:
Make no mistake: TWC's purchase is the beginning of the end for Weather Underground. (Remember Earthlink's acquisition of Mindspring? What a disaster). Weather Underground's page is a much easier place to get UN-pre-digested information quickly. TWC's page is cumbersome to use and has a very 20th Century feel. I mourn the loss of Weather Underground. I've been a loyal member for many years, and now I get slapped. Not good.

Slapped?! This site will not change dramatically. The reactions are seriously over the top. The tropics Gods needs to give us something to talk about. The doomsday's are making me sick.

Seeing your pictures make me very sad, a flourishing online community built over more then a decade will soon be forever lost to TWC. :'(

I too am sad. TWC is truly awful. And no one here will respond to our cries of disappointment. WU will slowly disintegrate and one day be lost forever. For this all users should be sad....

Hope I will still be able to pay my $5 and block the ads. Doubt it though. Corporatism wins again. It has been a lot of years here for me and it is over. But Dr Masters is entitled to get rich. He has worked hard and that is how we expect it to be.

I do note that a lot of people who have volunteered and contribute to this site are not going to get rich.
I am surprised at how shocked I am. Why did I expect it to be different this time?

I particularly remember the weekend before Katrina when Dr. Masters warned people to evacuate and then stated that it was too late. I also remember how he has worked to get people to understand climate change. But it is too late for that too.

The industrial corporations are going to own the world but I don't think there is going to be much of it left for them to enjoy.

I would gladly have paid $25 per year as my annual dues rather than the $5 I pay now to be ad-free and TWC-free if it was money you needed. Sigh.

ahhhhhwwwwwkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk
(strangling sound emanating from this writer)

sigh

As long as this site exists the way it does--including no ads for people who pay an annual subscription for no ads--I have no worries about this merger.

I just don't want to see all the weather.com garbage littering the pages her.

I've been following this site since it began and been a member since there were members. It's hard to believe that TWC will leave it alone. It is even harder to believe that they will "improve" the quality thereby making it more competitive with TWC.

Quoting hurricanehunter27:
There is a wonderful thing called add block you can get for free if the adds bother you so much. Btw its a company its goal its to make money and Jeff Masters and others worked hard to get here so they could sell for whatever amount on the check. Believe it or not a business does not revolve around what makes the users happy. If it did companies would go broke. I do agree on the bigger is not better though.

Thanks for your comment... I have only been a member for a year and a half, and as such I have no ads to contend with. I am just fed up with companies like Bain Capitol and Black Rock (who own TWC) coming in and screwing up a good company. They will look for consolidation opportunities, and of course, look for ways for the Wunderground to become more efficent by cutting positions and salaries. They will bring in their web folks to "enhance" the Wounderground site, and in the process, probably screw up what most like about the site. For my self, I have used it to put my weatherstation data on the web among other things. I look for that to end unless I want to pay for the storage etc. Some day most folks will finally get a clue that if every corporation in the US is owned by one murky group of capitalists, this will not be the best day for the rest of us.

This could be great news, so long as TWCC doesn't try to tweak the Wunderground culture and brand.

Quick! Get the TWCC mobile device programmers to start working on your Android app. The app's last update (2.0?) is craptastic, getting buried under bad reviews on the Play store (including mine, updated from my 4 stars for 1.1.1). The app needs a makeover ASAP, everything else about Wunderground is juuuuust fiiiiiiine. Congrats, folks!

I've been logging data to WU for a few years now (KMIPetoskey03). As a data analyst for a large university in Ann Arbor, but working in Northern Michigan, I've appreciated--and so have people here in this part of Michigan--the solid, reputable and highly accurate weather reporting done by WU, with regional local data input from weather stations like mine. Particularly in this snowy part of the nation, accurate weather predicting can mean the difference between life and death. This type of data also allows our winter-predicated businesses to adjust quickly to conditions to keep their economic bottom line consistent.

I'm proud that WU is a Michigan company with Michigan roots. Times change as when W.E. Upjohn was acquired by an international pharmaceuticals firm, as Chrysler "merged" with Benz, and so on.

As long as the quality of data is not corrupted by the corporate fluff of The Weather Channel and Weather.com, go ahead and make the deal. Sure, I would hate to see the A2 MI office go, but stuff happens.

grandste
KMIPetoskey03

I think I've been a "customer" and member since you started as I've been online since the days of CompuServe, bulletin boards, and when newsgroups were the primary ways to get information. I like change but some change I don't like (still using the "Classic" pages here) and I hope that this new merger leaves things as they are. I've tried all the different weather sites and nothing beats Wunderground or even comes close for weather hounds. I've sent hundreds to this site over the years and they always rave about it whenever we meet again.

The personal weather stations were the greatest addition since toilets were moved inside. So this old timer is groaning over the news of this merger and don't see how any good can come out of it as the Wunderground is fantastic as it is. As long as they leave the "classic" pages alone I'll still be checking in multiple timers per day.

I hope that the former owners and employees aren't "laid off" at a future date because of "duplication" but once you sign on the dotted line it's no longer your company. So good luck and I hope you enjoy the money you made because you certainly deserve it and I mean that in all sincerety. It's been a wonderful 17 years of using wonderground weather.

Jerry Ellis
Chipley, Florida

This can only mean the decline of this website over time. I can't imagine a less thoughtful partner to merge with. Their quest to make weather into a reality tv show will win in the end.

twch buying WU;

SHRT Run: good
medium run: confusing
Loooong run: blaaah, over commercialism or WU members call a special investigation and secure a fair market price to buy back WU.

THANK YOU TO THE ORIGINAL 6+1, GOOD LUCK

Well, I'm happy for the employees that will benefit from this deal.

However, I came to WU to get away from weather.com. I can't stand TWC's website. They have some of the worst and annoying advertising I've ever seen. They only present the completely diluted view of "lowest common denominator" weather. I came to WU because I loved analyzing the weather and studying it, being a couch meteorologist. Weather.com only presents the basic cloud icons and hi/low crap that the general public calls "the weather."

I hope they do allow WU to continue as it has. I fear that won't be the case though.

Ryan

Time will tell.
If this site degenerates into ads, I would find an alternative like NOAA or NWS.
What I don't get is who allowed the sale to go ahead. Obviously you can have an offer to buy and you can refuse. I don't get it??!!

Quoting JeffMasters:


I expect there will be an increase in traffic (and potentially trolls) on my blog in the coming weeks. Last I saw, the timetable was to put my blog on weather.com by July 25. I expect there will be no comments allowed there at first, but don't know for sure. I don't know what kind of cross-linking will occur from weather.com to WU; I suspect not much this year.

Jeff Masters

I found this Pat..
I'm a thinkin' this is it?

Interesting. I've been following Wunderground for years now, as they seem to be the most accurate source of weather data and radar on the internet. Being a licensed radio amateur I like the more technical aspect of the data as well. I felt that I should finally subscribe, and did. I payed ten dollars, not the five mentioned here. Is this the beginning of this merger? I was finally financially able to afford an Android phone this year, imagine my pleasure in discovering the Wunderground application and how well it worked. That is, right up until this "merger" with twc, who always seems to get the weather WRONG in my area. Now the phone app doesn't work, eats up power & memory in my phone, and I've uninstalled it. I'm hoping to find version 1.1.1 again and manage to install it and NOT update it, if it will even work that way. I truly miss having the temperature of the town I live in in the status bar. Wunderground is the only service I've found so far that has a local, and accurate, private weather station in my tiny little town. I'll be hopeful for now and wish for these kinks to be ironed out, but I've honestly never been able to stand twc, either website OR TV channel.

This may seem trivial to some -- but not me.

I've been a paying member of Weather Underground for several years. One of the attractive features has been to have ad-free pages.

But no longer. There are ads **everywhere**. Some auto-playing video ads included.

The membership page today still says "Ad-Free Weather --- We will remove all the ads from our site offering you cleaner, faster site access. No banners, no sponsor links, and this works for all pages including Favorites, Radar, and Severe Weather."

I guess this is a sign of the great things to come from WeatherChannel.com's purchase?

So, is there a general membership refund?

What a disaster. The new site is terrible! And now I know why.
Hey, everyone wants to make a little money.
TWC could not keep their hands off this.
The new site sucks.

BAD move!

I am deeply disappointed in how you have let poor old WU go in the toilet.

It is 10 pm on the east coast and you are still running the forecast for the day posted this morning. This is consistent across markets now.

Doesn't anyone care? Are you purposely trying to ruin the brand?

Not to mention that Rapid Fire no longer works properly with Davis weather stations. People have been reporting the "rapid updates have stopped" problem since April.

When your forecasts are 16 hours old you know nobody cares anymore.

What has happened to you WU?

Did you all cash in and head for the beach?

What a shame.

It is no longer worth the subscription to block the ads.