Reportstorms.com

[Darin Brunin]

I see where you are coming from.

I guess my question would be..... How is that any different from the competition looking at GRLEVEL2 and reporting the SN report on air? Having been in many TV wx offices during tornadic events this is definitely already happening today.

Andy

Well...because it will be plotted in real time on WxCentral software that will be shown on TV and I think that puts it in a different category than a met. looking at GRlevelX and relaying a report. I know how that works lol...last May I reported a tornado via SN and a radio station relayed the report over the air less than 2 minutes later. It was interesting to see them eat the reports off of SN up like vultures. I was thinking it would be funny to add something about how their radio station sucks at the end of the report so they could just read from the report and not realize what was added in until after they said it on air.

How do you think this will affect locals wanting to go meet up with the storm chasers when they see them on their TV's in nearby locations? I know they can go look at Spotter network but this will put it right infront of many many people's faces and should definitely increase the number of people that want to jump on a storm. Personally I think live locations on TV is a bad bad idea.

Lastly...I know information and lots of it on storms is a good thing...but are we reaching a point where there's going to be so much information available that it's really going to over saturate itself and knock its usefulness down a couple of notches?

 

[rdale]

Not sure I see where you are going with the last line... How can having too many pictures of a storm be a bad thing? People take cover when you tell them (and especially show them) that A TORNADO IS ON THE GROUND! That's why we do SN / streaming video / etc. There is a "neat" factor, but seeing something tearing up the landscape is PROVEN to get people to take shelter much more than showing greens and reds and swilygigs on the radar map.

 

[Darin Brunin]

I am referring to reporting rather than pictures or video. If people know that their location and reports will show up on TV...that will explode the SN and SR websites and provide more reports. On the flip side of the deal...you might have 500 people reporting on a storm when it goes through the Oklahoma city area and the majority of those most likely will not be good reports. If you get a big outbreak near a major metro area, I don't see how moderators could keep up with all of the information flowing through the reports system.

In other words...for this system to work there will have to be some kind of membership limitation system in place or it will get very crazy, very fast IMO.

 

[Tyler Allison]

In other words...for this system to work there will have to be some kind of membership limitation system in place or it will get very crazy, very fast IMO.

The SN will be implementing several "weeding out" systems before the start of the 2009 season. They are currently in development.

The WXC website has a wider audience than the SN. Andy and I just felt it was appropriate to kickstart the functionality with SN data. I suspect that if everything goes as Andy has planned the SN will become a minor portion of the content. Possibly the highest "quality", but still minor as far as volume. Only time will tell.

-Tyler

 

[Tyler Allison]

I have a quick question for you Andy...say I chased for a station in a market where a competing station has ESP...is there going to be a way to not allow my reports to show up on the competition's map? Or further more...for other sister stations and such owned by the same company that you help out when you are in their DMA?

Since currently the majority of the data in the WXC system is SN supplied I can answer from the SN perspective as the "data provider".

The Spotter Network is designed and managed as a public service and we will share that information with anyone and everyone. If your reports are not intended to serve the public good you should use whatever you are using today to submit information to your station. To date, I've not had anyone express interest in paying for a private system. Until someone steps forward with money to build such a thing, the existing Spotter Network will remain open.

Any station wishing to setup a private Spotter Network like system for their own use should get in contact with me or Andy. Just don't expect to have someone design, build and manage it for free. (Like I'm doing with the SN)

 

[Darin Brunin]

I appreciate all that you have done in developing Spotter Network Tyler...I really do.

But I have to ask you a question that I might come off as a jackass for asking even though I don't mean it that way. Also, if you feel it's a private business matter I will respect that as well. I just feel as a member of Spotter Network that I should know this.

Spotter Network is designed as a public service and you are disseminating this data to WxCentral, which probably loves free business deals, for free right? If so, like you state...you are a bolder man than I ever could be, because I know how much that system costs and it isn't cheap, especially for smaller market TV stations.

I am just curious

 

[Tyler Allison]

Spotter Network is designed as a public service and you are disseminating this data to WxCentral, which probably loves free business deals, for free right? If so, like you state...you are a bolder man than I ever could be, because I know how much that system costs and it isn't cheap, especially for smaller market TV stations.

It's a fair question. WxCentral pays the Spotter Network a nominal fee that goes to cover necessary equipment costs to maintain the system. The interface with WxCentral required _zero_ changes to the Spotter Network. An entirely private network is something that serves no greater good, is without question a way for someone to make more money, and takes my personal time on something that only serves a few. I'm happy donating my time to public service, that happy feeling stops when someone else expects to charge for something I did as a volunteer. Since the WxCentral interface required no effort on my part, the fee was nominal. Think of WxCentral and AllisonHouse as the "commercial" companies funding a public service....like NPR.

The SN is free for non-commercial use (eg: the people who generate the content on the SN). WxCentral is the first to obtain a "license" so to speak. (Well other than AllisonHouse) Part of that "license" is for them to provide necessary funds to help support and expand the SN.

 

[Darin Brunin]

Fair enough...thank you for your explanation. I still think you're letting WxCentral get off too easy though but that's just my opinion . Again, thanks for all that you have done in developing SN into what it has become.

 

[Andy Rice]

!

For the record from Weather Central..... if any TV station is interested in having Tyler and us develop a private Spotter Network with their chaser group.... Please give me a call.

I promise that Tyler will make out well in such a situation $

Tyler has done an incredible job at starting and growing the spotter network and we are proud to be the first TV weather vendor to realize this!

My hope is that the Weather Central/Spotter Network connection will push TV stations to have more of the EM's and spotters in their area join spotternetwork.org.

The more real time reports that get to the media, the more lives we all save.


Andy Rice
[email protected]

 

[Lanny Dean]

Hi Everyone,
" You have the ability to write a brief text summary of what happened and even attach a movie or picture that you took".

Andy Rice
Senior Product Manager
Weather Central Inc.
[email protected]

Personally I see two issues here that should be mentioned and addressed,

While in the field chasing, I do generally do not have time to write an essay/summary....during the heat of the battle I do not know of anyone who does. That said, would there or could there be a way to integrate icons, as in tornado, hail, wind or the like and just "click and drag" those icons to the appropriate postion on the screen to represent what you are reporting?

Also, my main concern(s) (and should be everyone's IMO), when you mention "even attach a movie or picture" this scares me.
I can totally see where this is heading, after spending much time in the media myself from market 76 to 66 to 55, I understand the dire need to get the video/pics that the local station is wanting so badly, and at some times willing to disregard copyright issues or credits.
So, after sending a video file or picture with your service and after all these tv stations pick up said video or pic.....who gets credit?
The tv station? Your product? And just who keeps the copyrights to the pics or video after you send them? Better yet, what happens to the vids/pics after sent? Does your company keep them on a server?

And of course we have not even mentioned the issues when the national media gets involved and picks up said video/pics from the local affil.
Is this not basically giving your video and pictures away?

We have had so many discussions about these types of issues on here and so many people ***** about how they got there video stolen or did not get a good price for it when the basic reason is because the market is flooded from doing this exact thing....and this to me is just another way to flood it even more.

No offense to you Andy, but these issues IMO, really need to be addressed before you start asking for video or pictures without consent forms or at least explaining just what happens to the video and pictures after they are sent and the like.

Just my opinion.

 

[Andy Rice]

Personally I see two issues here that should be mentioned and addressed,

While in the field chasing, I do generally do not have time to write an essay/summary....during the heat of the battle I do not know of anyone who does. That said, would there or could there be a way to integrate icons, as in tornado, hail, wind or the like and just "click and drag" those icons to the appropriate postion on the screen to represent what you are reporting?

Also, my main concern(s) (and should be everyone's IMO), when you mention "even attach a movie or picture" this scares me.
I can totally see where this is heading, after spending much time in the media myself from market 76 to 66 to 55, I understand the dire need to get the video/pics that the local station is wanting so badly, and at some times willing to disregard copyright issues or credits.
So, after sending a video file or picture with your service and after all these tv stations pick up said video or pic.....who gets credit?
The tv station? Your product? And just who keeps the copyrights to the pics or video after you send them? Better yet, what happens to the vids/pics after sent? Does your company keep them on a server?

And of course we have not even mentioned the issues when the national media gets involved and picks up said video/pics from the local affil.
Is this not basically giving your video and pictures away?

We have had so many discussions about these types of issues on here and so many people ***** about how they got there video stolen or did not get a good price for it when the basic reason is because the market is flooded from doing this exact thing....and this to me is just another way to flood it even more.

No offense to you Andy, but these issues IMO, really need to be addressed before you start asking for video or pictures without consent forms or at least explaining just what happens to the video and pictures after they are sent and the like.

Just my opinion.

Lanny,

Thanks for the thoughts.

By brief description our intent was "Flooding at Mile Marker 44" or "Hail covering the road". Also the description field is not required. If you want to report an event it takes under 5 seconds to do so.

On your 2nd topic I think it's important to understand that reportstorms.com will being catering to a broader audience than just the spotter community specifically the general public. In my days working TV, I found that tv viewers would send in hundreds or thousands of pictures of snow or severe weather. Weather Central is trying to make this process much easier because right now the TV mets have to copy stuff from their email to their weather computers and then convert the image or movie to the proper format.

How you choose to deliver and charge for you photographs is always your decision. If you do want to send something to the media for use on air, there are multiple ways of approaching that from being a paid chaser for a station, to walking a video tape into a TV station and asking for a check, to emailing a picture without asking for anything. Reportstorms.com is just one of those ways.

Thanks,

Andy

 

[Lanny Dean]

On your 2nd topic I think it's important to understand that reportstorms.com will being catering to a broader audience than just the spotter community specifically the general public. In my days working TV, I found that tv viewers would send in hundreds or thousands of pictures of snow or severe weather. Weather Central is trying to make this process much easier because right now the TV mets have to copy stuff from their email to their weather computers and then convert the image or movie to the proper format.

How you choose to deliver and charge for you photographs is always your decision. If you do want to send something to the media for use on air, there are multiple ways of approaching that from being a paid chaser for a station, to walking a video tape into a TV station and asking for a check, to emailing a picture without asking for anything. Reportstorms.com is just one of those ways.

Thanks,

Andy

Respectfully, Andy you still did not answer my main question(s)
What happens to said video after it is sent using your product? Are the video/pics on your server and does it remain there? I am assuming since it is not a direct link to the "local" station that it is stored on a drive....what happens to that data? Who is responsible for it?
Since you posted here on ST seeking interested parties(chasers) to paticipate I was under the assumtion that it was geared more towards us so to speak, however; IMO it does not matter if it is a chaser/spotter or Joe public sending stuff in or through your product, they still have copyrights to what they shoot video or otherwise and should IMO always get credit.
Does your product allow such and again, just who is responsible for the video/pics after sent?

After many years in the media, I certainly understand your thought process as far a the broader audience, but again, this is another reason the market is so flooded.....things like Ireporter,
Weather Warrior and the like. I do not see any difference between your product and any of those which I am sure, we can all agree, has helped to kill the chance for a chaser to make a buck or two and help pay for his/her gas or whatever.
All the while your company and and whomever you partner with is making money off the hard work we chasers are doing.
I am not trying to sound like a jerk here and I truly mean no offense but, It never ceases to amaze me at how a company tries to make money off of someone else's doings and hard work....basically getting something for nothing IMO.

When I still worked at KAKE, Jay Prater and I had a wonderful system that we used for video, pics and such. It was called Ipixcel and it worked really good, I used it out in the field to send live vid/pics back as well as "store and forward" and Jay could also use the same program to link all pics/vid coming into the station from any number of sources including e-mail....All this without any questions or worry about the video or pictures.
Could your product be set up much in the same way?

Again, I do not mean any offense and I hope you have not taken it as such, but I believe that these issues are real and could be bad for the chasing community most particularly, for those of us that are lucky enough to make a sale of our video or pics on a regular basis.

 

[Andy Rice]

Hey Lanny,

No offense taken at all. And it is your individual decision to submit something to the TV stations. I guess I view it as the same as if you were emailing a picture to a station. If you think that there is marketable value for a picture or movie, than I wouldn't give it away for free, or email it to a TV station. By submitting the photo you are giving Weather Central, and it's clients the shared copyright to display it on their website and in their broadcasts. ( I hope that answers your question directly, for more detailed info click on the Terms and Conditions link on the website)

Again we are trying to make a process that is already widely occurring (viewers submitting photos) easier for television stations to use on air, by porting them directly into their severe weather radar tracking system right on the map. The NWS LSR's take so long to come out sometime, and I do believe that having real time ground truth will be beneficial to saving lives.

Thanks again, and no offense taken at all.

Andy

 

[Andy Rice]

I'm not charging a television station for the use of these LSR's either.... it's a free service to the TV station.

 

[Lanny Dean]

Hey Lanny,

No offense taken at all. And it is your individual decision to submit something to the TV stations. I guess I view it as the same as if you were emailing a picture to a station. If you think that there is marketable value for a picture or movie, than I wouldn't give it away for free, or email it to a TV station. By submitting the photo you are giving Weather Central, and it's clients the shared copyright to display it on their website and in their broadcasts. ( I hope that answers your question directly, for more detailed info click on the Terms and Conditions link on the website)

Again we are trying to make a process that is already widely occurring (viewers submitting photos) easier for television stations to use on air, by porting them directly into their severe weather radar tracking system right on the map. The NWS LSR's take so long to come out sometime, and I do believe that having real time ground truth will be beneficial to saving lives.

Thanks again, and no offense taken at all.

Andy

Andy,
thanks for the quick reply and I will check out the "terms and conditions" on the website.
As far as chasers using this product, I have to say respectfully, that I would not be willing to use if required to send any video or pictures to any affill.
For Joe public though....I guess it could be useful in gaining "ground truth" for a given area.
Thanks again for your quick posts.