IBM selling The Weather Channel and the rest of its weather business::IBM will sell The Weather Company to Francisco Partners, a tech-focused private equity firm, for an undisclosed sum, it announced Tuesday.

  • @LEDZeppelin
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    1871 year ago

    In before a fascist wannabe billionaire buys the weather channel just to destroy any credibility it has and hijack the climate change debate. Even change the name of weather channel to something like “Y”.

    Let the enshittification begin.

    • @[email protected]
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      611 year ago

      You reminded me of this story from 2018 when the Trump team tried to put someone in charge of government weather data so that they could shutdown free public access, allowing private companies to use it and commercialize it

      “ One particularly alarming thread explored in Lewis’s reporting follows the ongoing efforts of Barry Myers, the chief executive of AccuWeather and Trump’s pick to run the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to privatize the agency’s practice of collecting and analyzing data that helps generate weather warnings meant to keep all of us, and not just those who can pay for it, safe.”

      https://www.vulture.com/2018/07/the-coming-storm-michael-lewis-audiobook-review.html

      https://qz.com/1341347/michael-lewis-audiobook-the-coming-storm-is-public-weather-data-at-risk-of-privatization

      • @cheese_greater
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        161 year ago

        God he sucks. Why don’t we do private firefighters and police while we’re at it.

        • @T156
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          11 year ago

          deleted by creator

    • @[email protected]
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      1 year ago

      Steve Bannon is sadly already ahead of you:

      The two networks’ shared ownership has alarmed some meteorologists, who say that WeatherNation is helping to legitimize the extreme viewpoints aired on Real America’s Voice, occasionally sharing its forecasts on the political network; at times the networks feature the same advertisers. These critics also argue that in its own coverage, WeatherNation fosters climate change skepticism by shunning any mention of the established links between human-driven climate warming and the disasters the channel covers, thus discouraging viewers from considering the consequences of climate change

      https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/02/20/weathernation-real-americas-voice-bannon/

      If paywall:

      https://web.archive.org/web/20230221114035/https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/02/20/weathernation-real-americas-voice-bannon/

      Another article with tons of linked sources: https://checkmyads.org/branded/how-proctor-gamble-ended-up-funding-steve-bannons-war-room/

      • Buelldozer
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        1 year ago

        I’ve watched WN on a regular basis since 2014. That’s the year I cut cable and WN was the only streaming option I could find. I was also sick of The Weather Channel and the non-stop drama being pumped out of their studios.

        WN may or may not be linked with RAV / Steve Bannon but I simply don’t care. They do weather and that’s it. It’s on when I want (always), gives reasonably accurate predictions, and there is zero political BS or unnecessary drama.

        The article has it correct, the WN is basically a modernized version of TWC from two decades ago and that’s all I need / want it to be.

        We can talk about GCC, I’m no denier, but I don’t need to be having that conversation while I’m trying to find out what today’s weather is going to be. If refusing to put GCC coverage front and center is wrong then every weather app on every smartphone in America is guilty of the same thing.

      • @ech0
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        171 year ago

        *Databases crash noises

    • @Mateoto
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      81 year ago

      This timeline is disturbingly absurd, making it increasingly likely that we could indeed face such a situation.

    • @DoomBot5
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      41 year ago

      Too late, it’s been shit for years now.

  • @adenoid
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    1 year ago

    Same firm that acquired LogMeIn (LastPass) and MyFitnessPal–and after those acquisitions both MyFitnessPal and LastPass quickly moved to worsen the free tiers of services in favor of their paid subscription models.

    • @kmkz_ninja
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      331 year ago

      That’s incredible. Both of those apps INSTANTLY became so much worse after they were bought out.

      • @[email protected]
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        11 year ago

        plus ça change with software disaster capitalism as always

        there’ll always be another app to ruin to make a quick buck

        • @kmkz_ninja
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          11 year ago

          There’s always blood to squeese.

    • @infyrin
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      1 year ago

      deleted by creator

    • @mint_tamas
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      21 year ago

      LogMeIn has way more free offerings now than just a couple of years ago. Source: used to work at LogMeIn. You are talking out of your ass.

        • @mint_tamas
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          21 year ago

          I don’t mind. but I’m pretty sure they are conflating two entirely different events: one was the almost complete removal of the free tier of the original LogMeIn, which at this point happened probably 10 years ago? LogMeIn (now GoTo) was privatized and sold two-ish years ago, maybe less.

          • @adenoid
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            21 year ago

            Sorry! I conflated LogMeIn with a specific LogMeIn product, LastPass (Francisco acquired the whole thing but I’m only familiar with LastPass). To clarify, the free tier of LastPass was made less useful following acquisition, particularly with the limitation to a single device.

            • @mint_tamas
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              11 year ago

              Wow, that’s a load of crap for sure. Not that it’s entirely unexpected tbh. LastPass was bought for the large userbase and the plan was to figure out later how to monetize them. Lots of hand-waving, little substance. Initially the lastpass teams were beefed up so much they filled all free space in the office. That lasted less than a year (which is around when I left). The embarrassing security incidents started after that. They really fumbled this, overall. Which is a shame, I used to be an early LastPass user, but moved on to 1pw long ago.

  • @[email protected]
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    561 year ago

    I used to love Weather Underground but stopped using it once The Weather Channel took over but crazy that IBM own that, what an odd acquisition.

    • @Ejh3k
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      121 year ago

      I still use it, mostly because I’ve been using them for nearly two decades and they’ve been the most consistently accurate in forecasting for my area.

      But since the IBM acquisition, the app has been so slow to load.

    • vanontom
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      11 year ago

      I used to love the WU app, it was beautiful and accurate. A few years ago I started noticing more and more puzzling changes, before I realized IBM had purchased them. They ruined an incredible app. Seems like they just outsourced development to lowest international bidder.

    • @foggy
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      581 year ago

      Data, probably.

    • @[email protected]
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      21 year ago

      BM planned to leverage its Watson technology as part of the acquisition, foreseeing its use for weather analytics and predictions. The deal, which closed the following January,[27] does not include the Weather Channel itself, which remained owned by the Bain/Blackstone/NBCUniversal consortium, and entered into a long-term licensing agreement with IBM for use of its weather data and “The Weather Channel” name and branding

      wikipedia page for The Weather Channel

    • @piecat
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      11 year ago

      A good way to get GPS data. You “need” gps if you want your phone to show “weather near you”

  • @DigitalFrank
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    481 year ago

    TIL IBM owns the Weather Channel.

    • @[email protected]
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      1 year ago

      Only the mobile app. They don’t own the tv channel.

      IBM planned to leverage its Watson technology as part of the acquisition, foreseeing its use for weather analytics and predictions. The deal, which closed the following January,[27] does not include the Weather Channel itself, which remained owned by the Bain/Blackstone/NBCUniversal consortium, and entered into a long-term licensing agreement with IBM for use of its weather data and “The Weather Channel” name and branding

      Wikipedia page for The Weather Channel

  • @captainlezbian
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    411 year ago

    Weather that is a good decision or not remains to be seen

  • Flying Squid
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    271 year ago

    Please don’t make Weather Underground shitty. It’s the only weather website that gives accurate information around here.

    • methodicalaspect
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      221 year ago

      Hate to tell you this, but it’s been shitty since the NEXRAD feeds broke and they never bothered to fix ‘em.

      • Flying Squid
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        41 year ago

        Maybe for you, but all the other weather websites I’ve tried are wrong. Even DarkSky was wrong half the time. It said sunny skies when we were in the middle of a blizzard once. I don’t know, maybe there’s something weird about where I am.

        • methodicalaspect
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          91 year ago

          I had a similar experience with Dark Sky, but Weather Underground was always great. The weird part of it is that I’m near Chicago, where the NWS office got trashed for their awful handling of the forecast and response to the storms that led to the Plainfield F5 in 1990 - bad radar was often cited as a reason for that response, so NEXRAD especially has been key to NWS’s improvement here.

          It’s www.weather.gov/lot for me now.

          • Flying Squid
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            1 year ago

            Oh wow, weather.gov looks really nice these days. It used to be bare bones. I may use it from now on, thanks!

            Edit: The only thing I don’t like is I can’t see where it has the current heat index.

              • Flying Squid
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                11 year ago

                Yeah, not there for me. Still worth using overall though.

            • methodicalaspect
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              11 year ago

              Yeah it’s pretty bare-bones. Pretty much the only site I am aware of that still uses image maps. The other one I like is the College of DuPage Meteorology site, though that gets even more archaic in some places: https://weather.cod.edu/

    • Doubletwist
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      161 year ago

      They’ve been shitty since TWC bought them. Maybe a little before when they killed their old web interface which was informative and fast and replaced it with a new design that was difficult to read information, and worst of all, slow as fuck. That’s about when I stopped subscribing.

      • @[email protected]
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        11 year ago

        worst of all, slow as fuck.

        So true. Waiting 30 seconds to see the temperature is ridiculous.

        • @over_clox
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          -11 year ago

          It takes all of 2 seconds to open the door. Guess what? The temperature is hot.

  • WorseDoughnut 🍩
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    191 year ago

    Maybe the Wunderground KDE plugin will be revived now that IBM isn’t the one handing out API keys…

  • @infyrin
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    1 year ago

    deleted by creator

    • ABeeinSpace
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      231 year ago

      IBM will still sell you a brand new, updated mainframe in 2023.

      They’re also in the open source software space (IBM owns Red Hat, a software company that has a lot of projects for Linux. Red Hat has their own Linux distro too)

      • umami_wasabi
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        111 year ago

        Which threats users to had their subscription cancelled when they share the source code according to GPL.

        • ABeeinSpace
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          91 year ago

          Yeah. I agree with ya there, Red Hat screwed over Alma and Rocky with that decision. I can see the utility of those two distros for testing before committing to RHEL.

          Plus, if Oracle has room to try to be the “good guys”, you’ve really screwed up

          • @[email protected]
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            11 year ago

            Nobody was “testing” rhel by using Rocky or Alma, they just didn’t want to pay for it. I mean you can test actual rhel for free!

            • umami_wasabi
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              21 year ago

              Nah. Deploy Rocky or Alma in mass. Have RHEL for a few machines. When you got a problem, reproduce it in RHEL and call support.

              • @[email protected]
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                11 year ago

                That sounds pretty exploitative to me, and exactly the kind of use case that red hat wouldn’t want to support.

                Think about what “bug for bug compatibility” actually means, they’re promising not to make any fixes or contribute to the build in any way!

                • umami_wasabi
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                  1 year ago

                  I agree. It was told by my professor. He said “industry norm”.

    • @[email protected]
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      41 year ago

      I knew they were a thing because I run into them in IT from time to time… but had no idea they owned the weather channel. Wild.

    • JJROKCZ
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      31 year ago

      I work with their iseries servers daily, they are very much still a thing

  • @ikidd
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    151 year ago

    Cool, could they sell Redhat to someone not actively evil, and fuck right off now?

  • t�m
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    111 year ago

    Does anyone know of a great alternative weather app?

    • @[email protected]
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      21 year ago

      I’ve recently switched to Weawow and it’s great! Really high quality widgets and a really powerful notification area feature.

    • @CluckN
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      -131 year ago

      Going outside

      • ggppjj
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        111 year ago

        Doesn’t help me see what the weather will be like in a few hours or days from now, which is the whole point of forecasting.

        • @CluckN
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          61 year ago

          Pshh, my uncle could feel a storm coming with just a feeling in his bad knee.

          • ggppjj
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            61 year ago

            So do I just call him or

            • @CluckN
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              51 year ago

              His hearing goes when a hurricane approaches so I’d send him a Fax

  • @[email protected]
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    1 year ago

    Makes sense. Now they can focus more on their core business. Google recently sold it’s domain registry, I think it might be the same thing.

    • methodicalaspect
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      101 year ago

      I think it’s fair to look at IBM with a more cynical eye. Historically it’s been “acquire, way you’ll make no changes, wait a bit, make changes that piss off 80% of your customer base.” Somewhere in there is a “reduce customer service effectiveness” step that is distinct from “make changes.”

      After that it’s either “sell it off to the highest bidder” or “keep at it because who else are the customers gonna use?”

    • umami_wasabi
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      It’s a bummer that Google sold it’s registry to GoDaddySquarespace.

      EDIT: seems like I remember it incorrectly

    • fmstrat
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      41 year ago

      I hear this a lot, but every company I’ve been a part of that did it seemed to be a bad idea. If a division makes money, the only reason to sell is because you believe the investment in that division can be used to make more money (for less). Getting rid of a profitable entity is usually greed based.

      • @[email protected]
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        71 year ago

        It’s corporate-speak that means nothing. The same company “focused on it’s core business” today will buy something unrelated sometime later and say it’s “poised for growth in a growing market”.

    • @UsernameIsTooLon
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      11 year ago

      If you have The Weather App, the IBM logo is on the splash screen every first launch.

      • @Arsenal4ever
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        11 year ago

        Ah. I guess I just use the one that comes with my iPhone.

  • @Copernican
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    21 year ago

    But that is where I get all the news I need.