The Most Perfect Piece of Information

Every day I come across some shiny new app that looks prettier than yesterday’s beautiful new thing. Almost none of these elegant wonders live to see a 2nd day. Yet one of the most valuable pieces of technology that I interact with every day is an ugly, hacked together text message.

Every morning at approximately 6:30am I get a text message with the day’s forecast, that I set up using IFTTT. It has just the high and low temperature, and usually 2–3 words on whether it’s going to be rainy, snowy, or sunny.

That little snippet is one of the most perfectly delivered pieces of information I’ve come across.

The timing is set for right before my alarm goes off. The message is short enough that all the info displays in message preview on my lock screen so I don’t even need to unlock my phone to see it. Every morning it’s the first thing I see.

That one line satisfies maybe 90% of my weather-related information needs. When weekend planning, I might open up an app or even go to that mockery of a website, weather.com, but every morning all I really care about is the approximate temperature and if it’s going to rain or snow.

I’ve tried out a number of weather apps out there. The ones from major players like the Weather Channel and Yahoo were full of information. The gorgeously designed Forecast.io even made it to my homescreen for a bit. But this simple, hacked-together solution has managed to become my daily weather reporter. It’s somehow one of the most perfectly crafted information delivery systems I’ve experienced.

It’s a great reminder that a simple piece of information, delivered at the right time, in the right place, in the right format, in a reliable and consistent manner, can be more valuable than all the feature-rich and ornately designed services being created every day.

Addendum #1

I’ve been trying out Poncho, a Betaworks company that delivers a similar weather service. I’m a huge Betaworks fanboy, but this is a perfect example of trying to get too creative. Poncho’s onboarding is incredible, but it’s actual delivery ends up problematic as you can see in the two examples below (nicely juxtaposed against the IFTTT solution):

Addendum #2

I would pay to be a fly on the wall during a weather.com staff meeting. What they’re trying to do with that absurdly valuable piece of real estate is way beyond me.

Originally published at Ranjan Roy.