Facebook is doubling down on weather reporting with an in-built app that provides personalised forecasts.
Given our obsession with the weather, and Facebook’s ambition to be the perfect personalised newspaper, it seems a savvy move.
The site started offering weather greetings to a select group of users last April, and the in-built app builds on that service.
It offers a same day hour-by-hour forecast and a simple forecast for the next five days using data provided by IBM’s Weather.com.
The service should available to all users by the end of the month and can be accessed through both the desktop site and the mobile app, where it can be found via the hamburger menu.
A Facebook spokesperson explained the thinking behind the service to TechCrunch: “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.”
Like Instant Articles, it’s another way for Facebook to deter users from leaving the sunny confines of its platforms. It may well work.