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

• US 20070073841A1
• Filed: 11/29/2006
• Published: 03/29/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 12/08/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: DTN, LLC (TBG AG)
• Original Assignee: The Weather Channel Incorporated (CF Entertainment, Inc.)
• Inventors: Ryan, Mark, Fennell, Jody, Pearson, Joe
• Granted Patent: US 7,461,137 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/217
• 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, the system employing a navigational architecture having:

a weather page for a geographical region; and

a set of pages contextually-related to each other and associated with the geographical region;

the weather page including links to each one of the contextually-related pages; and

the set of contextually-related pages containing links to both the weather page and also to all other contextually-related pages;

the weather page and the set of contextually-related pages being arranged in a hub-and-spoke fashion with the weather page being a hub and the set of contextually-related pages being spokes;

wherein from any one of the contextually-related pages or from the weather page, consumers can navigate directly to all other contextually-related pages or to the weather page.

2. The system as set forth in claim 1, wherein the contextually-related set of pages are related activities for the geographical region.

3. The system as set forth in claim 1, wherein the weather page includes a local forecast for the geographical region.

4. The system as set forth in claim 1, wherein contextually-related set of pages contain content for the geographical region.

5. A system for providing weather information to consumers over the Internet, the system presenting an interface comprising:

a banner section for providing some identification of the system;

a global navigation section designating a series of headings representing different categories of information available through the weather system, each of the heading being associated with a pop-up menu of sub-headings from which a consumer can select;

a main content section comprising a plurality of components and having a plurality of tabs associated with different types of content available through the system, consumers being able to navigate to a desired type of content by selecting a corresponding one of the tabs;

a footer section for use in providing non-weather information to consumers;

wherein consumers can navigate through information available through the system by selecting any one of the headings, sub-headings, and tabs.

6. The system as set forth in claim 5, wherein the interface further includes a section for displaying advertisements to consumers.

7. The system as set forth in claim 6, wherein the section for displaying advertisements is contained within the main content section.

8. The system as set forth in claim 6, wherein the section for displaying advertisements is separate from the main content section.

9. The system as set forth in claim 5, further comprising a navigational tool for allowing consumers to specify what type of information they want from the system and to associate a geographical region with the type of information they want.

10. The system as set forth in claim 5, wherein the main content section includes an activities component for allowing consumers to obtain information on the activities.

11. The system as set forth in claim 5, further comprising a weather alert section for displaying weather alerts associated with a selected geographical region.

12. A method of permitting navigation through a weather site on the Internet, comprising:

allowing a consumer to select from any one or a combination of a plurality of

navigational modes available at the weather site, the navigation modes including at least two from the group comprising;

navigating through a geographical architecture provided by the weather site in which weather information is arranged in a hierarchical manner;

navigating through a categorical architecture in which weather information is grouped by category;

navigating through a contextual architecture in which information is organized into contextually-related groups of pages;

navigating through a temporal architecture in which information is interrelated chronologically;

receiving a first request from the consumer through one of the navigation modes, the request including a first constraint for allowing the consumer to move within a selected one of the architectures;

delivering a first set of information to the consumer in response to the request and the first constraint;

permitting the consumer to switch to a second navigation mode;

receiving a second request from the consumer through the second navigation mode, the second request including a second constraint for allowing the consumer to move within the second architecture; and

delivering a second of information to the consumer in response to the second request;

wherein the second set of information delivered to the consumer is selected based on both the first constraint and the second constraint.

13. The method as set forth in claim 12, wherein receiving the first request is through the geographical architecture, the first constraint is a geographical region, the second request is through the contextual architecture, and the second constraint is an activity and wherein delivering the second set of information comprises delivering information on the activity within the geographical region.

14. The method as set forth in claim 12, wherein receiving the first request is through the geographical architecture, the first constraint is a geographical region, the second request is through the categorical architecture, and the second constraint is a type of weather data and wherein delivering the second set of information comprises delivering the type of weather data for the geographical region.

15. The method as set forth in claim 12, wherein receiving the first request is through the geographical architecture, the first constraint is a geographical region, the second request is through the categorical architecture, and the second constraint is a category of data and wherein delivering the second set of information comprises delivering the category of data associated with the geographical region.

16. The method as set forth in claim 12, wherein receiving the first request is through the categorical architecture, the first constraint is a category of data, the second request is through the temporal architecture, and the second constraint is a time period and wherein delivering the second set of information comprises delivering information on the category of data for the time period.

17. The method as set forth in claim 12, wherein receiving the first request is through the categorical architecture, the first constraint is a category of data, the second request is through the geographical architecture, and the second constraint is a geographical region and wherein delivering the second set of information comprises delivering the category of information associated with the geographical region.

18. The method as set forth in claim 12, wherein receiving the first request is through the contextual architecture, the first constraint is an activity , the second request is through the geographical architecture, and the second constraint is a geographical region and wherein delivering the second set of information comprises delivering information on the activity for the geographical region.

19. The method as set forth in claim 12, wherein receiving the first request is through the contextual architecture, the first constraint is an activity, the second request is through the temporal architecture, and the second constraint is a period of time and wherein delivering the second set of information comprises delivering information on the activity for the period of time.

20. A method of providing weather-related information over a network comprising:

providing a user interface to a user, wherein the user interface comprises a what/where navigation tool comprising (i) a what-choice for the user to select a selected category of information, (ii) a where-choice for the user to select a selected geographic region, and (iii) a submit-choice for the user to submit a request for weather-related information corresponding to the selected category of information and the selected geographic region;

receiving the request from the user, wherein the request identifies the selected category of information and the selected geographic region;

in response to receiving the request, retrieving weather-related information corresponding to the selected category of information and the selected geographic region; and

providing the weather-related information to the user over the network.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein a default selected category of information is a weather forecast and a default selected geographic region corresponds to a geographic region associated with the user.

22. The method of claim 20, wherein the where-choice comprises a plurality of potential geographic regions.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the plurality of potential geographic regions comprise regions of differing geographic specificity.

24. A method of providing weather-related information to a user over a network comprising:

providing a first hub web page associated with a first context and not associated with a second context and comprising (i) links for directly accessing each of a first group of spoke web pages and (ii) links for directly accessing each web page of a group of hub web pages,

providing each web page of the first group of spoke web pages, wherein each web page of the first group of spoke web pages is associated with the first context and not associated with the second context and comprises (i) a link for directly accessing the first hub web page and (ii) a link for directly accessing each of the other web pages of the first group of spoke web pages;

providing a second hub web page associated with the second context and not associated with the first context and comprising (i) links for directly accessing each of a second group of spoke web pages and (ii) links for directly accessing each other web page of the group of hub web pages; and

providing each web page of the second group of spoke web pages, wherein each web page of the second group of spoke web pages is associated with the second context and not associated with the first context and comprises (i) a link for directly accessing the second hub web page and (ii) a link for directly accessing each of the other web pages of the second group of spoke web pages.