Nate & VA-Birders,
The BirdPost company has taken me by surprise as well. eBird used to have
this market cornered but then again so did Apple Computer once upon a time.
I too have thought about the drawbacks of giving our hard-won sighting data
to a private-sector company that is primarily devoted to neither science nor
conservation, but rather its own profits.
However, I think the development of BirdPost *could* have good ramifications
for eBird. eBird is now faced with competition, and they will have to try
harder to attract our sighting data. Hopefully this competition will mean
that eBird will coevolve and develop better features for us users, since
BirdPost has upped the ante on how information is distributed back to the
site's users.
To me, the choice is personal. Although I see the attraction of BirdPost's
sexy interface and social network structure, I would rather give my data to
eBird, which I trust will use the data for science and conservation, and not
for profit. The idea of giving something of value (our sighting data) to a
company that is out to make a buck rubs me wrong. But it's a free market,
and BirdPost is going to try and cut into eBird's market share. We've got
the potential for an interesting drama here.
As for BirdPost being part of the Avian Knowledge Network, I'm going to
guess "fat chance!" Watching the video of the presentation at the tech show,
I'm guessing their business plan would rather SELL the data to private
consulting firms.
We'll see how this plays out. BirdPost seems to cater to the
brag-about-their-life-list types, and it would seem that eBird will have no
trouble retaining the care-about-the-greater-good types. As for me, I'm
hoping eBird ratchets up their feature development efforts, and I'll be
pulling for them.
Good birding always,
Andy
PS: Yes, I know nothing is stopping me from using both sites simultaneously,
but I'd really rather not spend twice as much time entering my sightings. I
already don't have as much time as I wish I did...
PPS: This was my first post on the list. I'm a recent emigre of
Pennsylvania, starting out at William & Mary's biology M.S. program.
On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 3:57 PM, Nate Dias <offshorebirder@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
While it may seem appealing at first, Birdpost is not so good when you
delve into the details of this FOR-PROFIT endeavor that directly competes
with Cornell/Audubon's Project eBird.
Indeed, much of the Birdpost application seems to be a shameless
repackaging of some of eBird's new features like Google mapping, Notable
Birds Gadget, etc.
I hope people do not reduce their eBird usage in favor of this product!
From what I can tell, Birdpost is not a true 'citizen science' tool like
eBird, Christmas Bird Counts, GBBC, Project Feederwatch, etc.
* All
things being equal, why not use a personal bird
tracking/alerting/mapping tool that also helps bird research and
conservation?
Due to some structural/procedural/data quality
drawbacks, I doubt that Birdpost will ever be part of the Avian
Knowledge Network: http://www.avianknowledge.net/content/datasets
There
seems to be a high probability of spurious/misidentified/bogus species
reports making it into the Birdpost database. This is because once a
species gets on Birdpost's regional checklists, people can apparently
report it at will without an editor or other expert reviewer weeding
out the misidentifications, fabrications, etc. This means neophytes,
kooks, 'wishful thinkers' and the entire spectrum can enter sightings
unchallenged by well-informed and experienced local gatekeepers - unlike
eBird, GBBC, CBCs, etc.
And
the dataset for Birdpost will probably never reach the size of eBird's,
since eBird also gets imported data from sources like the ISS
(International Shorebird Survey - a 30+ year project) and numerous
other sources.
* For these and other reasons, it seems like
Birdpost data will not be of much use to researchers. I don't think it
qualifies as "Citizen Science" due to the data validity issues alone.
In
terms of their future plans for other areas of reporting: it would be
hard to imagine the later versions not having harmful effects when it
is used on reptiles for example (since both legal and illegal
commercial turtle and snake collectors can use the Internet too).
Nathan Dias - Charleston, SC
Subject: BirdPost
From: "Zach Thompson" <glorifyenterprisesinc AT gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:34:32 -0400
Hey All,
Look at this:
http://www.birdpost.com
Presentation:
http://www.techcrunch50.com/2008/conference/presenter.php?presenter=85
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