neil katz: future forecast: how a 30-year-old tv company got obsessed with mobile

Future Forecast

How a 30-Year-Old TV Company Got Obsessed

with Mobile

What do you know about the Weather

Company?Nothing.

When I started here...

Me neither.

But this blew my mind

Three decades before Smart TVs, before XBox, before the Web, before most folks had email or cell phones

I WAS COOL IN 1982

A small company out of Atlanta, Ga., pulled off an amazing technological feat

This is technology?Really?

ReallyThis is a national cable channel

delivering near real time forecasts to every zip code in

America.

Even Todayno other television company can delivery unique news to your TV. That’s why unlike the web, we all see THE SAME newscasts

each night.

Soon afterAn enterprising engineer

thought it would be neat if Weather Channel employees

could have their email at weather.com

Eventually people started searching

their local zip code and weather…. Boom!!

So by accidentweather.com was born and the

company is the dominant weather news site on the web

Now 100 Million People

Read more than a billion pages each month on our site

But we had a problem

When it’s sunny outside people don’t show up

So we investedheavily in journalism, video production and storytelling

Tripled our editorial staff

CBS News, Huff Post, Daily Beast, Everyday Health, AOL,

Audubon Magazine

Went Big on PhotosOriginal photography from more than 100 shooters around the world

Andrew NeweyBeekeepers of Nepal

And Builta digital video production unit and a documentary unit

Today we make20 videos a day on breaking weather news, travel, health, science and action sports

And will release6 short docs this year

On topics you wouldn’t think we

could doAmerica Burning

Fracking and Toxic AirHomeless in Coldest City in

AmericaClimate Change Denial

Our digital unit is also making TV

Two hours of Primetime called “Will to Live”

Runs on TV, Web, Mobile

Good for youbut now everything is going

mobile…

So what’s your next trick?

Reinvention

40 Million Peopleuse our apps each month

another 10 million on mobile web

formatted for mobilehiring editors just for mobile

Deliver News & Video

Go Long, Go DeepMobile doesn’t only mean short

form

make it easier than webvine is the leader

Fast Start Video

Facebook and Twitter are driving how we scan mobile news.

News Stream?

GPS locked severe weather warnings and breaking news.

What’s your version of that?

Location Matters

We’re experimenting with content that relates to your location. Will it be interesting, timely, high quality? Do you just want cat videos?

But does it always matter?

Are big media sites daring enough?

Old School?

What can the upstarts teach us?

New School

Visual content up high + super social

New School

Upworthy is the king of social. Should news sites follow?

New School

Upworthy is the king of social. Should news sites follow?

New School

Can a 15 second newscast really work?

http://instagram.com/p/mLfcuHM95B/

New School

Hasn’t radio been doing this for a really long time?

PS: Instagram now has more MAU than Twitter

Back to School?