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David Friedberg, a former Googler, is set to launch an ambitious new site called WeatherBill, headquartered in San Francisco, in the next few weeks. WeatherBill won’t be a consumer site; rather, they are combining an ecommerce site with a complicated weather forecasting algorithm to sell weather insurance policies to individuals and businesses. And having a business isn’t a requirement to purchase a contract on WeatherBill - users can also use it to simply make a cash bet on the weather swings in a given geographic area.

曾效力于谷歌的David Friedberg开始了他的新事业，名字叫做WeatherBill的网站，在接下来的几周里，将在旧金山设立总部。WeatherBill不是一个消费者网站；它更像是一个混合了天气预报系统的电子商务网站，通过向个人和企业出售天气保险业务获利。而并不需要在WeatherBill上请求签订合同，用户也能利用它在特定的地理区域内简单的用金钱打一个赌。

Weather insurance is difficult to get and even harder to customize. Enron began to dabble in weather-related securities, who’s value would fluctuate based on actual weather down the road, but that all ended in 2001 when the company went bankrupt. Today, large energy companies trade weather policies back and forth to hedge against high or low temperatures, but everyone else is left out.

天气保险很难得到，更难去定制。Enron开始涉足于天气相关的保险业务，这种价值将波动真实的天气。但是当公司破产后，所有这些都在2001年结束了。今天，大量的公司重新开始了天气贸易，继续向前阻止高温或者低温，但是其他人已经离开了。

That’s where WeatherBill will come in. Anyone can buy an insurance policy for weather in a given area. Choose a weather station via a Google Maps mashup (see screenshot to right) and choose whether you want it to pay out for each hot, cold, rainy or dry day. Temperatures are set by the user by degrees, precipitation by inches. As an example, if I want to be paid $100 for every very rainy day (1/4 of an inch or more) in San Diego in March 2007, that policy will cost $370.64 and will pay up to a maximum of $3,000. Every option is variable, and so the user can decrease the amount of rain required, increase the maximum payout, etc., via an Ajax interface. A contract for a payout of as little as $1 can be created.

那就是WeatherBill将要进入的地区。任何人可以在特定的区域购买一个天气保险。通过谷歌地图选择一个天气状况（请看右边截图），然后选择你想要支付的天气如晴天，阴天，雨天或者干天。温度按用户以度来设置，雨雪等天气按英尺计算。例如：如果我花费100美元在2007年3月在圣地亚哥给每一个大雨天（1/4英尺或者更多），那么保险将花费370.64美元，将支付最高3000美元。每一个选项都是可变的，因此用户可能减少雨天的请求，增加最大的支出，通过一个Ajax界面。按合同，最少指出金额为1美元。WeatherBill hedges their own risk via their weather algorithm, which Friedberg tells me they use to simulate 20,000 years of weather daily for each weather station. They also sell their risk on the back end to a number of hedge funds. The result is guaranteed profit for them, regardless of the weathler. All they have to do is sell policies.

WeatherBill通过他们的天气系统来减少自己的风险，Friedberg告诉我，他们模仿了20000年内每天每个区域的天气状况。他们也在最后出售风险结束一些阻碍资金。结果是保证了他们的利益，不管天气怎么样。他们所要做的只是出售保险。

WeatherBill may be useful for golf course owners, movie theaters, amusement parks and other businesses who’s business varies significantly based on that day’s weather. I would imagine that having this built into things like Quickbooks and other online accounting software would be a great feature for many small businesses. The only requirement to purchase a policy is that the individual or business is an “accredited investor,” meaning they have a net worth of at least $1 million. The user has to certify this when creating an account, but no follow up is done.

WeatherBill 将对高尔夫课程拥有者，电影院，博物馆和一些于天气有关的公司非常有用。我将设想把这个写进Quickbooks，其他的在线帐户软件将对一些中小企业产生大的影响。只需要以投资人的身份为个人或商业公司请求支付一笔保险就可以了，意味着他们获得了至少100万的纯利润。当创建一个帐户时，用户不得不为此担保,但不会被追踪。

WeatherBill is has raised a Series A round of financing from NEA, Index Ventures and a number of angel investors. Look for a launch in the near future. Additional screenshots below (note: these are from an early demo, and will probably change somewhat by launch).

WeatherBill 已经从NEA, Index Ventures和一些个人投资者获得了一轮风险投资。在不久的将来将启动这些资金。请看下面的截图（备注：这些是早期的演示，在一定时间将被更新）

Article from(文章来自于):TechCrunch 2007-1-2