As I stated back in August, WeatherBug (AWS) was working on some pretty cool projects that I have been anxiously waiting to come out. At the time of my tour in Maryland, much of their work in this area was still in development. So it was logical to put much of this on hold from my perspective until it was ready for public eyes.

Well, today is that day. Enter WeatherBug Labs. In the continuing effort to prove that they are a company that is about data, not desktop apps, WeatherBug has made some really exceptional strides in a variety of distribution methods for getting critical weather data out to the people. Below is a close up look at some of the recent ideas they have come up:

WeatherBug Podcast- What I suspect to be one of many projects involving podcasting, this daily audio download is a quick summary of the nation’s (US) weather in a format that can be taken in quickly without lots of extra fluff.

Weather Games- They have offered this game for sometime now, but I think that by adding it to the Labs page is certainly a great way to kill a few minutes when time permits. Speaking personally, I tend to be a fan of memory games in general anyway.

WeatherBug on IM- One of their more inventive apps, this IM tool allows the user to get their weather on their terms - no waiting. Just warm up the ol’ IM client and retrieve the latest data on your local conditions.

WeatherBug Lite Mac- I have actually been sitting on this one for some time. I have been squirming around wanting to share this app, but since I did not have a Mac to properly test it out on, I had to wait for the release before making any public mention. Part of the reason for my excitement in regard to this Mac version is that it is designed for the Unix OS (OS X), therefore we are not going to be hearing people squelching about adware or the like. If you have tried this app, I’d love to hear about it - seriously.

WeatherBug API- Likely to become their ace in the hole, this API allows people to develop whatever they wish. If I actually had programing skills, I could see this API as being very useful combined with Google Maps’ API. Then again, this could already be on the burner. Who really knows for sure?

WeatherBug RSS- For me personally, this is the crown jewel of the whole labs project. I honestly believe that this proves both to me and to anyone else out there that WeatherBug is a data company, not one that is application centric. Hands down, this is the best weather-based RSS feed setup that I have ever used. But don’t take my word for it, try this out for yourself. I challenge you to do a side by side comparison next to RSSWeather. With a straight face, even prideful old me will admit that WB blows their butts out of the water with alerts, more weather stations (over 5,000) and even more timely data. Another key difference between the two services is the school-network in addition to the airport data WB uses to report the weather. The simple fact remains that non-WeatherBug sources do not have access to the volume of weather stations that WB does.

This may not mean much to you, but being my mom always told me that I was sugar, the prospect of being unprepared for sudden rainfall is simply a risk that I am not willing to take. After all, sugar melts…

Tags: rss, mac, podcast, data, weather