"MyObservatory" Hitting the 200 Million Mark

19 January 2011

The new personalized weather service "MyObservatory" launched by the Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) has become very popular with visit figure skyrocketed to 200 million in the second half of 2010 (Figure 1), amounting to around 20% of HKO's website.

Making use of positioning software to estimate the user's location, "MyObservatory" automatically displays the latest weather information, including temperature, relative humidity, rainfall, wind direction, wind speed and weather photo, from nearby weather stations. "MyObservatory" has recently been enhanced to include more weather information such as 7-day forecast, weather warnings, tropical cyclone tracks, satellite and radar images, etc.

To better serve people on the move, mobile PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), iPhone app and Android app versions of "MyObservatory" are made available (Figure 2). Besides, "MyObservatory" is also applicable on iPad.

Relevant links for the above products are:

iPhone version:
http://itunes.apple.com/hk/app/myobservatory/id361319719?mt=8

Android version:
http://www.hko.gov.hk/whatsnew/f2/wn20101130e.htm

PDA version:
http://pda.weather.gov.hk/locspc/locspc_portal_e.htm

iPad:
http://www.hko.gov.hk/whatsnew/f2/wn20101111e.htm

Figure 1. Visit figure of "MyObservatory" from July to December 2010

Figure 2. "MyObservatory" PDA, iPhone app and Android app versions