

Show HN: Rooster - An SMS service that messages you the forecast every morning - hartleybrody
http://www.roosterapp.co/

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gordjw
This is do-able with IFTTT. Maybe best to market outside of the tech
community, to people who don't know about or aren't interested in setting up
their own IFTTT.

Edit: Good on you for actually doing it though!

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hartleybrody
That's a great point, and I think it'd be especially useful to people with
dumb phones who otherwise wouldn't have access to weather info on the go.
Figured I'd start it here and then see if I can market it to those crowds.

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bcks
This is super cool, and I'm very tempted to sign up... but how else will my
cell number be used? Even without getting all legal, I'd love a brief note in
your FAQ about your privacy policy.

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hartleybrody
The only plan is to send weather texts. If the costs of hosting become a
burden, I might add a donation feature to the site. But I definitely don't
plan on renting/selling/sharing/etc any of this info.

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grecy
This is great!

Thanks so much for sharing the code, it's extremely helpful.

I've thought about making something similar (notifications for certain events
via SMS) and I'm wondering if you know if Twilio can charge a fee to the end-
user for every text? i.e. if for example I say "Subscribe to get an SMS every
time there is a tornado in your area, for 50c per SMS" (I made that up, BTW)

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singer
I think it'll be hard to charge for weather alerts via SMS when so many people
are already offering that for free -- like me
([http://www.WeatherWatcherAlerts.com](http://www.WeatherWatcherAlerts.com)).

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grecy
Agree. My plan is not for weather alerts.

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yink
I'm guessing location refers to US zip codes. I'm living outside of the US, is
there anyway to specify decimal lat long coordinates?

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hartleybrody
Location data is run through Google's geocoding API to return
latitude/longitude. If you include something that uniquely identifies your
location, it should work fine.

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Terretta
Out of curiosity, I signed up for a daily weather text from a Show HN a couple
months ago. I love their imaginative texts.

But I want a friend to sign up and have no recollection of what service it is.
I'm guessing not this one as this says it doesn't get sent on weekends. Ideas?

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hartleybrody
Hmm, don't know the service you're referring to. Curious what you mean by
"imaginative texts" though. Do they spice up the forecast language?

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Terretta
Coincidentally, today their update had a short URL in it. So after three
months, I know what the service is. :-)

[http://poncho.is/register/](http://poncho.is/register/)

Yes, they have imaginative updates. Signed up on 25 April, and so far, no two
have sounded alike.

Also noticed once every couple weeks they seem to have a sort of "localized
product placement" type update along the lines of "Sunny and 75 degrees,
perfect for an outdoor table at Susie's Diner." At least I assume that's what
it is.

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hartleybrody
Ah, very cool! I'll see if I can reach out to them. Thanks for the tip :)

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zaatar
Very cool, thanks for sharing the source, too! What's future plans with this
app, if at all any?

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hartleybrody
At this point, it's just a simple way to experiment with new ways to deliver
an app instead of the usual web or mobile app context.

I've seen similar "morning update" apps that send you all sorts of
information, but I'd rather stick to the "do one thing and do it well" ideal.

I think it'd be really cool if I could market this to areas where smart phone
penetration isn't as strong. I'm imagining farmers or laborers in poorer areas
would really benefit from a daily forecast, but might not have easy access to
one. I just have to figure out how to get this in front of those people.

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badclient
Can we have a relative weather service? I'd like to know how today will be
compared to yesterday. It's insane that this doesn't exist given that is how
most of us end up gauging what action we need to take for the weather.

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gsiener
Check out poncho.is which launched recently from betaworks. They do this (It's
warmer than yesterday) and it's been really helpful for the confused nyc
seasons we're getting.

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Terretta
I'm in NYC area and love this service. Signed up in April, have been wanting
to recommend it to friends, but until this morning's update with a URL in it,
I couldn't remember what service it was and the SMS "HELP" didn't tell me.

If Poncho is reading this, update your HELP to mention poncho.is!

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blaedj
This is great thanks!! Ever since google shut down sms search I've been
wanting something like this!

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zeckalpha
I implemented something like this as a Python script last year. It was fun to
do.

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tled
How is it free ?

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kungpoo
Farenheit. Lol.

