Weather information delivery systems and methods providing planning functionality and navigational tools

• US 7,185,044 B2
• Filed: 01/19/2001
• Issued: 02/27/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 11/06/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: DTN, LLC (TBG AG)
• Original Assignee: Weather Channel
• Inventors: Ryan, Mark, Fennell, Jody, Pearson, Joe
• Primary Examiner(s): Barot; Bharat
• Application Number:
  US09/766,295
• Publication Number:
  US 20020130899A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,230 Days
• Field of Search: 709200-203, 709217-219, 709/226, 709/229, 702/3, 34235706-35714
• US Class Current: 709/200
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions

Abstract

A weather system available through the Internet provides for clean and consistent global navigation, brings content close to the consumer, and allows consumers to plan their lives based on the weather. The weather system provides consumers with multiple methods of navigating through the site, including: geographical, categorical/activity-based, localized/contextual, and temporal. These navigation methods are not mutually exclusive but instead are tightly nested to allow consumers to navigate seamlessly through the site, switching from one method to the next. On a local weather page, the information is organized in a hub-and-spoke fashion so that consumers can navigate to interrelated information. The weather system can quickly give consumers the local weather at any location, but also empowers consumers to plan their lives based on the weather. The weather system parses weather information and other data into a database and uses a combination of presentation beans, data beans, and advertisement beans to build pages that are delivered to the consumers. Business logic is incorporated into the beans to allow the system to select content and displays based on the consumer, the consumer'"'"'s product, network, geography, weather, co-brand, language, and locale.

Claims

1. A weather system for use in providing weather information to consumers over the Internet, comprising:

weather data for a plurality of geographical regions;

planning information for the geographical regions, the planning information containing data on at least one activity for multiple geographical regions;

mixed weather-planning data associated with the data on each activity for each of the multiple regions, the mixed weather-planning data providing a rating of each activity for each geographical region based on a plurality of factors, at least one factor related to the weather data for that geographical region; and

the system providing the mixed weather-planning data to consumers in conjunction with the planning information;

wherein the rating can be used by consumers in evaluating the activities at the multiple geographical regions and also in ranking the activities between the geographical regions based on the weather.

2. The system as set forth in claim 1, wherein the weather data used in formulating the mixed weather-planning data for one activity comprises a sub-set of weather data having an effect on the one activity.

3. The system as set forth in claim 2, wherein the one activity is golf;

the mixed weather-planning data comprises a golf index, and the sub-set of weather data includes temperature, lighting strikes, wind conditions, and precipitation.

4. The system as set forth in claim 1, wherein the system displays to consumers each of the weather data, planning information, and the mixed weather-planning data on a single page.

5. The system as set forth in claim 1, further comprising a locator for allowing consumers to search for activities within different geographical regions.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the factors of the plurality of factors relates to activity data.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the factors of the plurality of factors relates to planning information.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the factors of the plurality of factors is a subjective factor related to a comfort level associated with the activity.

9. A method of providing weather data and planning information to a consumer over the Internet, comprising:

obtaining weather data for a plurality of geographical regions;

obtaining planning information for the geographical regions, the planning information containing data on at least one activity for multiple geographical regions;

receiving a request from the consumer over the Internet, the request specifying an activity and a certain geographical region;

obtaining mixed weather-planning data associated with the activity and the certain geographical region, the mixed weather-planning data rating each activity for each geographical region based on a plurality of factors, at least one factor related to the weather data for that geographical region;

providing planning information for the activity to the consumer; and

providing the mixed weather-planning data to the consumer through the Internet;

wherein the rating can be used by consumers in evaluating the activity at the certain geographical region based on the weather.

10. The method as set forth in claim 9, wherein obtaining the mixed weather-planning data comprises deriving the mixed weather-planning data in response to the consumer'"'"'s request.

11. The method as set forth in claim 9, wherein obtaining the mixed weather-planning data comprises storing the mixed weather-planning data for a plurality of activities and a plurality of geographical regions.

12. The method as set forth in claim 9, wherein receiving the request from the consumer comprises receiving an indication of what activity the consumer wants to do and an indication of where the consumer wants to do the activity.

13. The method as set forth in claim 9, wherein receiving the request from the consumer comprises providing the consumer with a local weather page with links for planning different activities and the request is a selection of one of those links.

14. The method as set forth in claim 9, wherein obtaining the mixed weather-planning data to the consumer comprises selecting a sub-set of the weather data having an effect on the activity and deriving the rating from the sub-set of the weather data.

15. The method as set forth in claim 9, wherein obtaining the mixed weather-planning data comprises obtaining an index of the activity based on the weather conditions.