Beautiful, exotic, rarely seen outside her natural habitat are all words you might reasonably hear someone say when describing a beautiful bird from Sweden but how about Short, dark hair, kind of chubby, round face with a red beak...maybe not but thanks to a new site Birdpost.com, which was launched today at the TechCrunch50 Conference, not only can I go out and find an elusive Swedish bird but I can let everyone know where I had the encounter and add it to my life list of 'conquests'.
The presentation these guys gave absolutely blew me away, they along with a soon to be loyal following of 'birders' or 'twitchers' (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birdwatching for an explanation of terms) are creating an encyclopedia of bird sightings (using satellite mapping) and a social network for birdwatchers to brag about the birds they've had encounters with.
Having spent numerous hours during my undergraduate degree working on research projects on birds (I wrote a groundbreaking report on 'the evolutionary history of handedness of Australian parrots and 'sexual dimorphism in Sooty Oystercatchers' I love these birds checkout Birdpost to see where you can see them for yourself) with Professors who are avid 'twitchers' and came to realise just how addictive and rewarding it can be.
Birdpost.com combines entrepreneurship and principles of wikinomics to reach a niche market which is apparently worth $US32billion. But more importantly, the potential of this site as an educational tool for universities, and as a means of researching and promoting conservation is enormous and the platform could be expanded to map mammals, reptiles and plants. I have been inspired by this site and my mind is racing with ideas (if anyone from Birdpost is reading this please get in touch with me).
I have already signed up and will keep you all updated (with pictures) on my encounters with rare, exotic and beautiful Swedish birds :-)
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