Freese-Notis

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"FNW" redirects here. For other uses, see FNW (disambiguation).
Freese-Notis Weather
Type Private
Founded Ames, Iowa (1973)
Headquarters Des Moines, Iowa, USA
Key people Harvey Freese, Co-founder
Charles Notis Co-founder
D. R. Arthur, CIO
Industry Weather Forecasting
Industry Specific Weather Forecasting
EIA Natural Gas Forecast
Internet Access Services
Agriculture and Farming Weather
Services Meteorological
Doppler Radar Imaging
DSL
Video Weather Services
Forensic meteorology
Commodities Forecasts
Zipcode Weather Data
Weather forecasting services
Website www.weather.net
www.energy.net

The Freese-Notis Weather company, commonly known as Freese-Notis, is currently a world leading weather forecasting corporation and is known worldwide for its mid-range and long range weather forecasts. Headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, United States, it has a global presence in the fields of meteorology, analytics, and related services, and also provides Internet Access DSL and Web hosting services. The company strengths for natural gas and energy markets now creates forecasts spanning industries such as media and web content found in the United States and foreign countries.

Contents

[edit] Company history

Charlie Notis and Harvey Freese both were students at Iowa State University in 1973. The company originated on the Iowa State University campus in nearby Ames while they were post-grad students at Iowa State during the 1973 oil crisis.

The partnership was formalized on May 1, 1973 with a typewriter as its first piece of office equipment and acted as collateral for shares of stock. A friend of Harvey and Charlie suggest to name the enterprise "Freese-Notis Weather." [1]

The only "problem" (if you want to call it that) with the name was that during the first couple years of existence, some of the radio listeners during the summer months would get a little confused when the radio announcer would introduce the Freese-Notis forecast that some thought was a "freeze-notice" forecast. How was that possible in the middle of July? Actually, it turned out to be a perfect name for recognition and uniqueness.

In 1995 Quote.com became one of the early users of content written by meteorologists highlighting weather with commodity symbols for easy access by traders. Shortly after that, both sponsored and subscriber based web pages were added to Successful Farming magazine's site, Agriculture.com portal for the agribusiness and producer audience. Doppler radar imaging for the site called, [2] provided a national, regional and local views across the contiguous states plus the District of Columbia but geared to the farmer. The service evolved to a second generation even more tuned to used with web portal's after the year 2000 to included mobile applications and other kinds of weather map displays.

In 1995, other web sites added sponsored content pieces and subscription services. Into the later years of the Internet boom, even companies like Enron's Azurix subsidiary added content from Freese-Notis containing unique weather information related to water consumption and use. Irrigation users of the Azurix web site had a unique perspective on risk management with Freese-Notis weather providing a series of maps outlining the trends for their operations. Freese-Notis had also been the recipients of [3] Christmas Baskets from Enron trading for appreciation of their weather forecasting services multiple times from then to even in 2001 making the final cut despite the troubles within that firm.

Although unique subscription based Web Content with earlier partners like Quote.com, the general model switched to either advertising based or sponsor based types of web content took over. Eventually those forms became far more prevalent in the later years as the era shifted with the models of various portals. Only a very high value sites like Energy.net and Hoovers remain for subscriber access in the current form of the Internet with paid contract access for a select and exclusive few seeking a market advantage.

[edit] Recent developments

Charlie Notis and Harvey Freese acquired Captain Jack Communications based in Ankeny, Iowa in the summer of 2007[4]. Although kept as a separate entity from Freese-Notis Weather, they will work in a complimentary aspect with the other's business and are in close geographic proximity.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.weather.net/html/about.html
  2. ^ Trademark Applications and Registrations Retrieval, serial number 76155870 (InterRAD), United States Patent and Trademark Office, (2000-10-30). Retrieved on 2002-09-17.
  3. ^ "The Christmas Baskets have been ordered.". Trampoline. Trampoline Systems (December 12, 1999). Retrieved on 2004-03-14.
  4. ^ "Freese-Notis buys Ankeny Web business". News. Real Estate News from Iowa (August 7, 2007). Retrieved on 2007-08-07.

[edit] External links