My friend Tommy came rushing into my office yesterday and said "I have to show you something."
He asked me to pull out my android and download an app called Project Noah. I did that and we played around with it a bit. Project Noah is a mobile app (iPhone and Android) that people use to document and share the wildlife and plantlife they encounter in their daily life. I don't have much wildlife and plantlife in my office so there wasn't a lot I could do right then and there. But we did take a look at the website where all of the activity is displayed in map form and by species. The app had just been approved and released and there was already close to 10,000 "spottings" all over the world.
Project Noah is a small team that came out of NYU's ITP program and they started working on this idea while they were in school. They are now full time on the project and I think what they are up to is very interesting. Will this be a great business? Not sure, but then National Geographic has been around for a long time. Can this be impactful in the way that wikipedia and wikileaks have been? For sure.
With a little imagination you can see where all of this can go. Photos are just one piece of the puzzle. Audio (via soundcloud?) and video are natural additions. And the places and ways the content can and should be syndicated are many and myriad.
I'm going to play around with the app a bit. For anyone who is a fan of nature and wildlife, I suggest you might also want to do that.
