TWC Today

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TWC Today
Logo of TWC Today
Screenshot of the front page of the TWC Today forums on November 7, 2021
TWC Today forums as they appeared on November 7, 2021
Type of site
  • Internet forum
  • Content site (former)
Available inEnglish
Predecessor(s)TWCforums
Country of originUnited States
Ownercc17926
Founder(s)Gary Turner, Jr. (lfmusiclover)
Justin Matherne (jamnola)a
URLtwctodayforums.com
RegistrationRequired to post on forums
Users1,629b
Launchedca. March 6, 2005; 20 years ago (2005-03-06), as TWCforums
May 22, 2005; 19 years ago (2005-05-22), as TWC Today (content site)
June 25, 2007; 17 years ago (2007-06-25), as TWC Today (forum and content site)[1]
Current statusActive
  • a Tanner was the sole founder of the current iteration
    of TWC Today
  • b Number of users as of November 7, 2021

TWC Today is an Internet forum serving the fan community of the American television network The Weather Channel. It is dedicated to discussions about the network in its current state and has been the largest existent fan community for the network since 2009, existing in some capacity since 2005. It was superseded in member count for a few years by We Love Weather, an official Weather Channel website, before its forum was shut down. TWC Today was also previously a content host for a variety of content from the network as recorded by fans.

Background

TWC Today, in addition to the forum, was also once home to a variety of fan-written and fan-recorded TWC content. Information such as on-camera meteorologist lists, local forecast music playlists by month and year, screen captures and videos of network content such as Local on the 8s, and more was available. This content constituted the home page of the website but had not been updated in years before it was replaced by the forum itself as the homepage and made invisible to users. The content can still be found using an archival website such as Wayback Machine or through other resources such as YouTube.

The design of the forum, unchanged since the forum's early days, is based off the on-air look of The Weather Channel as it appeared approximately around 2008-2009, evident in elements such as the logo, color scheme, icons, and rank banners.

Users have a variety of customization options for the look of the website, profile information, and more. Profiles can be edited to include information such as cable provider, channel number for TWC and Weatherscan, and what Weather Star model one has, among other options. This information shows up besides a user's forum posts.

TWC Today is home to the largest collection of Weather Channel fan art and other creations available online. Some of this work has been lost over time due to age, corrupted files, and changes to image hosting platforms.

History

For the history of the TWC Today forums as TWCforums, see TWCforums.

TWC Today was first founded as TWCforums, a simpler and much smaller forum than the current iteration, on or around March 6, 2005[2], by Gary Tanner, Jr. and Justin Matherne, who went by the usernames lfmusiclover and jamnola respectively. The creation of the forum was in response to a controversy on the official weather.com Message Boards.[3][4] In May of that year, TWC Classics announced it would solely focus on classic TWC content up to 1996, with Matt Marron, its founder, willing to donate its newer content to a site willing to cover newer topics. Therefore, on May 22, 2005, Matherne and Tanner created a dedicated content site covering The Weather Channel from 1996 to the present utilizing the current name TWC Today, which existed alongside TWCforums.[5] Sometime either in May or June, Matherne unexpectedly became inactive in his role as co-owner of the sites, leaving Tanner as the sole administrator.[6] In November 2005, Tanner attempted to create a new forum, possibly under the updated name, but poor reception led to the abandonment of that project and a brief resurgence of attention to the original forum.[6] TWCforums remained under its existing name until early June 2007, when the forum was rebranded to the TWC Today name prior to the establishment of the current iteration of the content site and forum on June 25, 2007[7][8]. The new version of the site was founded solely by Turner[9]; Matherne's abandonment of the original sites was cited as a reason for a new site.[4] The following day, many videos were added to the site's content page, which begun a process of adding new content which would continue through at least the next two years.

On April 27, 2009, Turner made an announcement stating that unless someone else would come forward to take ownership of the site, TWC Today would shut down a few weeks later on or around May 13. Turner cited budgeting issues, lack of interest in the current state of The Weather Channel, and business and social life as personal reasons for the future closure.[10] Within the next few hours, Turner and Martin Cornick, then a donor to the site[11], discussed a plan to potentially transfer ownership to Cornick. The next morning, Cornick posted that he accepted the offer[12], later posting his official announcement of becoming owner and operator of TWC Today that evening.[13]

On July 2, 2009, the forum's current logo, designed by user Jesse Maloney, went live on the site. The new logo featured multiple variants corresponding to live programming on The Weather Channel at the time that would change according to the time of day, such as a Your Weather Today-themed design that would appear on weekday mornings as well as a PM Edition-inspired design for evenings, among others.[14] Despite multiple network graphics changes since that time, the logo variants, which still rotate according to the network's 2009 schedule, are still intact on the site today.

In early 2010, the forum launched a technical support board monitored in part by The Weather Channel's dedicated STAR Team, allowing users to report problems they might have encountered with their local Weather Star units.

On April 9, 2010, the TWC Today forums merged with those of TWC Classics to form a combined new forum under TWC Today's domain name, from then on known as the TWC Today and TWC Classics Forums.[15]

On October 30, 2015, site owner Martin Cornick unexpectedly passed away, only days after celebrating his 24th birthday. Many forum users, a large number of which had been inactive for years at that point due to the decline of The Weather Channel, left their condolences for Cornick in a thread dedicated to the news.[16] After his passing, the administration and moderation teams collaborated to ensure the site would continue to exist. In the immediate aftermath, they were unsure if the site would in fact survive, primarily because all hosting details were solely in Cornick's possession and had not been shared. Administrator and well-known TWC YouTube personality cc17926 came forward the next day to clarify that a plan had been reached for transitioning the site to a new domain name, as he had been given the authority for the site's back-end operation but had not been given billing information for the domain. The new and current domain name was published on November 4, after which the original domain pointed to the current one until the original expired.[17]

Weatherscan XL simulator

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Pagetype/setindex' not found. The public beta of the Weatherscan Local/XL simulator, one of the few publicly available WeatherStar simulator projects, was released on TWC Today in October 2008. The project had previously been under development since 2003.[18] Prior to release, there had been a thread on the now-defunct TWC Classics Forum teasing the arrival of the simulator.[19] Since the public release, TWC Today has been a home for the project, linking to the web-based portal used to download and configure the simulator for a user's area.

The simulator has a variety of products and graphical themes to choose from, much like the actual Star it replicates. It is highly customizable, since backgrounds, logos, and other files are accessible locally.

Notable figures

A variety of notable figures within the TWC fan community began their public affiliation with the fandom on the forums.

List will be expanded

  • Triple C TWC - Weather Channel-themed YouTube personality; joined January 2011
  • wxTV - Weather Channel-themed YouTube personality; joined July 2013

See also

Other community forums

References

  1. ↑ "TWC Today Forums - Statistics Center". TWC Today. Retrieved November 7, 2021.
  2. ↑ Tanner, Jr., Gary (March 6, 2005). "Recently Updated Posts | TWC FORUMS". TWC FORUMS. Archived from the original on January 29, 2025. Retrieved January 29, 2025.
  3. ↑ Tanner, Jr., Gary (December 14, 2004). "setup dialog box". Taiganet. Retrieved December 15, 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Turner, Jr., Gary (January 15, 2009). "WTF!!!!". TWC Today. Retrieved December 15, 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  5. ↑ Tanner, Jr., Gary (May 22, 2005). "Recently Updated Posts | TWC FORUMS". TWC FORUMS. Archived from the original on January 29, 2025. Retrieved January 29, 2025.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Tanner, Jr., Gary (November 7, 2005). "Recently Updated Posts | TWC FORUMS". TWC FORUMS. Archived from the original on January 29, 2025. Retrieved January 29, 2025.
  7. ↑ Tanner, Jr., Gary (June 4, 2007). "Recently Updated Posts | TWC FORUMS". TWC FORUMS. Archived from the original on January 29, 2025. Retrieved January 29, 2025.
  8. ↑ "TWC Today Forums - Statistics Center". TWC Today. Retrieved November 7, 2021.
  9. ↑ "Profile of lfmusiclover". TWC Today. June 25, 2007. Retrieved April 15, 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  10. ↑ Turner, Gary (April 27, 2009). "The Future Of TWC Today". TWC Today. Retrieved April 15, 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  11. ↑ "View the profile of Martin". TWC Today. February 20, 2008. Archived from the original on February 3, 2009. Retrieved April 15, 2024.
  12. ↑ Cornick, Martin (April 28, 2009). "The Future Of TWC Today". Retrieved April 15, 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  13. ↑ Cornick, Martin (April 28, 2009). "New Administrator and Owner". TWC Today. Retrieved April 14, 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  14. ↑ Cornick, Martin (July 2, 2009). "New TWC Today Logos". TWC Today. Retrieved April 14, 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  15. ↑ Marron, Matt (April 9, 2010). "Forums / TWC Classics". TWC Classics. Archived from the original on December 31, 2012. Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  16. ↑ Maloney, Jesse (October 31, 2015). "Martin's passing and the future of TWC Today". TWC Today. Retrieved April 14, 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  17. ↑ cc17926 (November 4, 2015). "Martin's passing and the future of TWC Today". TWC Today. Retrieved April 14, 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  18. ↑ TWCToday (October 25, 2008). "Welcome to the Project!". TWC Today. Retrieved November 7, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  19. ↑ Stephen (October 25, 2008). "Re: Release Date". TWC Today. Retrieved November 7, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

External links

Retrieved from "https://www.twcarchive.com/w/index.php?title=TWC_Today&oldid=21014"