AccuWeather refines WAP site with more features

By Giselle Abramovich

April 23, 2008

Making for a hot site

AccuWeather.com has launched a series of new features and content for its mobile Web site that brings it more in line with its online counterpart.

The site has seen increasing growth since its launch in 2002, helped with features designed to offer users a better wireless weather experience. The AccuWeather.com WAP site consistently ranks in the top 15 overall mobile sites in terms of traffic. 

“Basically our strategy behind new features and content is we really wanted to make our product offerings more consistent, with more content and more like our online product,” said David Mitchell, director of wireless for AccuWeather.com. “We wanted to make the mobile site match our mobile widget content as well, giving mobile users more information.

“The change to the Severe Weather Alert was meant to slap people in the face, as it's bolded in red and it stands out more in an effort  to motivate a person to click through and see the weather situation,” Mr. he said. “Weather isn’t just a matter of interest. It affects lives and property and we are responsible to get the information out to people in a timely fashion."

AccuWeather has added 15-day forecasts, hour-by-hour forecasts, weather news, meteorologist blogs stories and weather warnings to its WAP site.

In addition to these new content areas, AccuWeather.com continues to offer current conditions, health indices for arthritis and asthma, and zoomable, animated radar.

"The AccuWeather.com mobile Web site is for users who are looking for something better from their wireless weather experience," Mr. Mitchell said.

"We have experienced tremendous growth over the past year and we're happy to show our appreciation to our audience with fresh content users can't find anywhere else," he said.
 
According to internal mobile Web tracking reports, mobile Web impressions for AccuWeather.com have increased nearly 300 percent between March 2007 and March 2008. 

Nielsen Mobile reports show that AccuWeather.com is in the top two weather brands on the mobile Web and in the top mobile Web sites overall. The Weather Channel Cos.' weather.com is the nation's top standalone weather site online and in mobile.

“We want to give site users the ability to view all the content that we make available,” Mr. Mitchell said.

"They can get a view of 15-day forecast along with that for shorter term forecast hour-by-hour," he said. "Consistency of experience is something we are focusing on right now. We are trying to get people to click through our mobile site.”