After our small effort to report on this horrific disaster on this blog, I recently came across several efforts from other ordinary citizens who also wanted to contribute to providing the world with accurate reports about the recent oil spill in Louisiana…using their cell phones!

This kind of reporting, known as “Crowdsourcing” has been springing up all over the Internet since the event and has enabled the entire world to obtain up-to-date information about the unfolding spill and response efforts right when it’s happening!

The oil spill crisis map, developed by the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, an environmental advocacy group, is now bringing together hundreds of these field reports in order to compile an online map of the spill using free, open-source software, Ushahidi.

In order to submit your report, send an SMS or MMS to 504-272-7OIL. You can even tweet your report to #BPspillmap

Or if you’d prefer to contribute using a smartphone app, check out the free Oil Spill Response iPhone app which will enable you to file mobile data reports and photos regarding affected coastline and wildlife using GPS. Android users should download the Oil Reporter Map which contains similar reporting facilities!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 15th, 2010 at 11:11 am and is filed under Home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.