The Weather Channel Interactive Relaunches Desktop Application With Enhanced Content, Interactive Maps And Baseball Team Skins

Atlanta, GA (PRWEB) April 9, 2008 -- The Weather Channel Interactive (TWCI) today announced a completely revamped Desktop application featuring interactive weather maps, new and improved content areas, and four forecast options on the home screen. Desktop also introduces an array of advanced ad products that will enable sponsors to better target Desktop users. The Weather Channel Desktop is a free ad-supported application that lets users stay just one click away from up-to-date weather information and severe weather alerts.

Updated Forecast Tools and Personalization Now Available

The Weather Channel Desktop provides the current local temperature and severe weather alerts in the PC system tray. For the first time the free application provides interactive maps with selectable weather layers, pan and zoom capabilities, and the ability to see weather in motion. It offers more comprehensive coverage of breaking weather news stories, such as storms and hurricanes, and revamped hourly, 36-hour, daily, and weekend forecasts.

With its latest version, users can now personalize The Weather Channel Desktop with colorful skins and features that are most relevant to their daily lives. This includes driving conditions, rush hour traffic conditions, business travel forecasts, outdoor exercise forecasts, golf course conditions, and allergy and pollen levels.

Just in time for baseball season, the new Desktop application offers users the option to customize Desktop with their favorite Major League Baseball (MLB) team colors, logo and content. Once customized with a team choice, users will see LIVE scores, and forecasts and current conditions for each stadium. Other baseball content includes links to MLB.com for team information, including team sites, breaking news, schedules, team stores and tickets.

"No matter the platform, The Weather Channel Interactive provides easily accessible and accurate weather information in ways that are fun and informative," said Harold Lewis, vice president, consumer software at TWCI. "The new Desktop embodies that by mixing weather insight with features like sports team skins, traffic reports, and travel forecasts in an interface that is simple and enjoyable to use.

Targeted Ad Placements

The Weather Channel Desktop has enhanced its lineup of ad products to include the Adaptor© ads previously only available on weather.com. This feature allows advertisers to dynamically contextualize their message based on the environment where the advertisements are served and the location of the user. For example, an advertising message could "adapt" by pulling in the Desktop user's city name and their current temperature and placing it into the ad message, "its 28 degrees in Chicago - a great time to travel to Aruba where it is currently 85 and sunny."

Other new advertising products debuting include the Custom Frame©. As part of the Desktop Start Sponsorship, advertisers now have the opportunity to extend their message around the exterior of the Desktop by running unique out-of-banner creative that "frames" the application. This space, combined with the 300x250 ad unit, gives advertisers a powerful branding opportunity by reaching users at the onset of their Desktop experience. Other advertising products available on the Desktop application include Geo-targeting, Demo-targeting, Weather Triggering and Lifestyle targeting advertisements.

For more information and/or to download The Weather Channel Desktop visit www.weather.com/services/downloads.

About The Weather Channel Interactive:

The Weather Channel Interactive is the leading provider of broadband and wireless weather products including weather.com, The Weather Channel Desktop, and The Weather Channel Mobile. weather.com, the Web site of The Weather Channel, is the ultimate source of weather on the Web helping users plan their lives by delivering timely current conditions, expert forecasts and relevant lifestyle content for 98,000 locations worldwide. The Weather Channel reaches more than 35 million unique users online each month and is the most popular source of online weather, news and information according to Nielsen//NetRatings. The Weather Channel Interactive also provides consumers with unique and customizable products such as Desktop Weather and a full lineup of mobile services including downloads, messaging, mobile Web, and mobile video. Other TWCi sites include forGetaway.com, a vacation home rental site, Forecast Earth, a site dedicated to the discussion of climate change, and a series of international sites, including www.weather.co.uk, www.meteo123.com, www.wetter123.com, www.canaldotempo.com and www.weather.com/espanol

For more information on The Weather Channel Companies, including press releases, images, executive information and backgrounders please visit www.weather.com/press.

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