Facebook Launches Weather Forecast Feature
Laura Donovan — February 13, 2017 Follow @thewordpro— February 13, 2017
Facebook makes no secret of the fact they want you to stay in Facebook for everything you do online. From shopping to researching service providers to watching the news, they are making nearly everything available right in the platform, including your local weather.
In 2012 a study by the Online Publishing Association found that 47% of people used their smartphones to check the weather.
Facebook tested weather updates in the UK last April. Last week Facebook confirmed to TechCrunch they now had an updated weather feature that was rolling out to 95% of its users worldwide via mobile, iOS and Android, as well as desktop.
Users will begin to see weather updates at the top of their News Feeds. These notifications have doodles that change based on the current weather and when clicked open to a full forecast for their area.
They can also access weather information via the Facebook app “More” menu at any time, even if it isn’t at the top of their News Feed.
The weather data is provided by Weather.com and defaults to users’ locations, users can easily view weather in other locations via the settings wheel in the top right corner.
Users can also see full weather data by clicking the “See more weather info” at the bottom of the screen. This link takes the user to the Weather.com site (still while in the Facebook app.)
Facebook is also testing a feature that will allow users to turn push notifications for their device on so they will receive weather updates via notification outside of the app.
According to Facebook, the goal of adding weather forecasts was to “connect people to the things they care about most.”
“We are doing this because our goal is to develop products that connect people to the things they care about most and create moments of joy in people’s day, like simply telling you that it’s going to rain later,” a spokesperson said.
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