As the oil leak at the BP Deepwater Horizon site continues into day 43, there is a now an application available for both the iPhone and Android OS phones to help assist collecting data and sharing it to aid the cleanup and recovery efforts underway along the coastal regions affected by the oil.

Oil Reporter is a pretty simple idea. We want people to share what they see and to allow that information to be shared with everyone. We believe that if people share what they see and that information can be placed on a map, it can help organizations and communities with their response efforts. – OilReporter.org About Page

Oil Reporter takes a page from Twitter‘s base question of “What are you doing?” and changes it into “What do you see?” The application provides a very basic description box for collecting a text narrative about where you are and what you are seeing as it pertains to the areas under siege by the crude oil. The application takes advantage of the multiple media creation tools that smart phones provide and promotes the attachment of photos of your location as a visual reference for your report. For those who are text shy, the application allows you to utilize a slider to rate how much oil you see. The slider asks you to rank the sight of oil from 0 (open water) to 10 (thick oil).

The application does not just ask for information about actual oil on the shores, but also about the area wildlife and what effect the oil is having on their living conditions. There is a drop down box asking for the status of the area’s wildlife and a second slider asking for the reporter to document the effect the oil is having on the area’s wetlands. Both of these more focused inquiries address the main concerns of the citizenry and can become crucial in directing clean up efforts as the situation continues to unfold.

Oil Reporter not only takes information, but reciprocates the exchange by providing an easy option to view their Twitter feed from within the application and they also provide easy access to volunteer opportunities in the four states thus far affected by the oil spill.

Overall, this crowdsourcing initiative via application is utilizing the citizenry instead of considering them as liabilities, which is something that FEMA has been pushing emergency managers towards.

Oil Reporter was created through the joint efforts of Intridea, Appcelerator, and Crisis Commons

About the author

Dave Konig wrote 205 articles on this blog.

Dave has been involved in Social Media since 2005 through the current major services and some defunct ones as well. During this time he has been able to hone the craft by testing out the theories of others, creating his own philosophies, and gathering a better understanding of the mediums involved through networking and most importantly actual practice.

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