Forecast is good for the Blackberry Weather Network widget

I’ve recently installed the Weather Network blackberry widget on my Blackberry 8800. One of the advantages of creating a device specific widget is that you can enrich the user experience beyond a typical mobile website.

The Weather Network is no exception - taking full advantage of the blackberry Java platform to delivery an intuitive and easy to manage widget.

Once you’ve downloaded the widget, you can select your city of choice for weather updates. Coming soon - the ability to add up to 5 more cities - although I believe there should be an unlimited city option like there is on the iphone weather widget by Yahoo.

The neat thing is that once your choice city has been selected, you can get the current temperature by just scrolling over the icon on your blackberry desktop. Clicking on the icon will give you a detailed forecast for that day. Using the options button, you can switch to short and long term forecasts too.

Want to try it out? Point your blackberry mobile web browser to: http://weyebb.pelmorex.com

The Weather Network is a leader in the Canadian mobile space.

Don’t have a blackberry? Check out their mobile website at mobile.theweathernetwork.com - assuming of course your fingers don’t get tired before you finish entering the URL into your mobile device

They also offer text message weather alerts, forecast and traffic in specific area. They even offer video weather updates if you are on the Rogers network.

For marketers looking to enter the mobile channel, building a widget specific to a market leading device such as blackberry is a great way to create engagement while building loyalty to your brand or service.

Widgets can also act as shortcuts to a mobile website - such as the Blue Jays widget I’ve also installed on my blackberry that gives me live box score updates as well as news feeds.

Having said that, wouldn’t it be great for fans to have a java-enabled experience that would include streaming video or audio from the game?

Is building a device-specific widget right for you?

Looking at the demographic of a typical blackberry professional user, I see tremendous opportunities for Automotive, Financial, Pharma, and Retail brands to build widgets that can at the minimum make the mobile web easier to navigate and at the maximum truly extend a brand experience to mobile.