WeatherBug weirdness

Back at Gnomedex, Steve Rubel and his client (Weatherbug) gave a presentation about using the blogosphere to counter a negative impression of their company. It was a decent talk, and I was impressed that they handed out registered copies of the “plus” version of WeatherBug. As I wrote then:

Jeff’s got CDs of WeatherBug Plus in the back (I just installed it, holy cow — it’s 96 degrees back home right now!) and is essentially representing that the company’s open, willing to engage the community and also willing to listen. …Having just installed the app, I’m pretty impressed. They’re creating a community of users (8,000+ weather stations at schools around the country), they’re engaging the community, and listening.

Well. On January 1, my “registered” copy somehow turned into an unregistered free copy of WeatherBug, and I’m getting all kinds of prompts to “upgrade” (for a fee). I was puzzled by this, and even contacted their support desk asking why my registered copy of WeatherBug plus converted itself to an ad for the “upgrade” to a product I thought I already had. I received an auto-reply, then nothing else since then.

Don’t get me wrong: I didn’t pay for WeatherBug Plus, so if what was actually handed out at Gnomedex was a time-expiring copy, fine. But that’s not what was communicated at the time, and it’s puzzling that I inquired about this two weeks ago and have heard nothing back.

For what it’s worth, the “plus” version is definitely worth it. I’ve found the free version to be more of an interruption (maybe I’d configured the Plus version to bug me less with pop-up alerts), but the free version is much more insistent about reminding you that it has alerts for you… And while I like having the current temp in my system tray, I’m inclined to simply remove it.