I don't know about you, but I find the traditional weather websites irritating. Sure, you've probably locked on to your local weather. That's easy. But what about the rest of the world?
Let's suppose you're planning a vacation. Ever been to the Caribbean Islands? Never been there, but it sounds like fun. Do you know where they are? What islands are there? My wife and I wanted to find out, so the first thing we did was search "Caribbean Islands". We found a bunch of sites, patchwork information, including "islands for sale" and lots of vacation deals that promised much but said little. I kind of thought Haiti was in the Caribbean...but it's not much of a vacation destination right now.
Not enough information, and too much at the same time. So, then my wife asked if I knew anything about the weather there. I punched up the top weather site, typed in "caribbean islands", and up came "no results found". I tried the second site and got information on the tides. The third most popular site showed links for U.S. cities. We gave up for the night.
The next day at work I was griping to a friend about searching the Internet and he just laughed. I asked him what was so funny and he said it's all there if you just look. I said thanks a lot; I didn't feel like spending all evening researching and bookmarking a bunch of sites. He said I wouldn't have to if I wasn't so ignorant, and he laughed again. Me? Ignorant? He scribbled on a notepad and handed me the paper. It just had one word on it: OneTouchWeather. He left with the parting words of "dot com".
After dinner that night I fired up my computer and checked my emails. Then my wife asked if I had done any more research on our vacation, and that reminded me of my friend's suggestion. I typed the address into my browser and the OneTouchWeather homepage opened up. It looked good, nice and clean. Most weather sites are cluttered and full of ads, and some even have pop-ups. (Arrgh!)
At the top of the page was a world map button that was labeled "get the weather here", so I clicked it and a new page opened with a full world map showing all the continents and--there it was--the Caribbean Islands!
I clicked there and a new map appeared showing the whole island chain. Woo Hoo! Dozens of them! I clicked on Martinique and another new page opened with a map of the island and a box listing important locations. I clicked on "Fort-de-France" and the current and long-range weather opened up-- exactly what I was looking for. If the temperatures had been listed only in Celsius I could've clicked the "Convert Temperature" link to convert to Fahrenheit.
I called my wife over and showed her what "I" had discovered (ha ha). We spent the rest of the evening exploring and learning. Everything was right there in one location. We couldn't believe it. Just playing with the weathermap was a fascinating education. We ended up back at Martinique and clicked the Wiki link on the page, and that took us straight to its Wikipedia site. (Christopher Columbus discovered Martinique in 1502. What a guy.)
Then we clicked on the OpenStreetMap link and used the mouse to drill down from a world view to the local streets of Fort-de-France. How awesome. The TimeZone link took us to an interactive world timezone map that showed us Martinique is in the Atlantic Time zone on Standard Time, which is the same as Eastern Daylight Savings Time. Wikipedia told us Martinique currency is the Euro, so we clicked the Convert Currency link to check the latest exchange rate.
We were getting a little excited by now, so we clicked "Travel" and discovered that OneTouchWeather offers complete travel and vacation services. Cars, flights, hotels, packages, and more. Plus a low price guarantee on the hotels! We found a package with a hotel on the beach we couldn't resist, at a great price.
Back on the homepage we used the "Travel Information" links to check on passports, international travel, country specific information--wow. Plus travel insurance, maps, travel gear, too much to list. It was all there.
Maybe they should've named the site OneTouchWeatherandTravelAndLotsMore.com. Naw. I think I'll buy my buddy at work a bag of Krispy Kremes on the way in tomorrow.
Willem Karsin is a writer, businessman, and an avid traveler. Take advantage of his experience and visit One Touch Weather.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Willem_Karsin
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