I've been kicking around an idea for an app recently that

File: birds-couple-cute-wallpaper.jpg (623KB, 1680x1050px) Image search: [Google]

623KB, 1680x1050px

>>2292331
This could be neat. It would be nice to have a profile to help identify the bird clearly (audio clips of its call, female and male markings, etc). Also some sort of photo sharing aspect could get people interested in the cataloging feature.

If you really wanted to go a step farther than just an interactive field journal app, you could put in some sort of simple virtual pet game aspect with pixel version of the birds being unlocked as you find them? You could decorate your "yard" with feeders and things for the birds to interact with.

I like it.
I know there's some sites/forums dedicated to posting locations where certain species have been spotted. Not sure if there is an app for that since I'm not that autistic to keep up with that shit but implement that in it and I'm sure birders would be all over it.

this is a really neat idea op
i think it would be cool to have tips on how to attract certain birds to your yard maybe
>>2292407
i'm also digging the idea for a virtual pet thing

>>2292407
this sounds so cool
i've never been a birdwatcher but I would totally get into this

This would be sick but it might be a lot of effort

>>2292331
Aren't you just describing eBird, OP?

You see what other people have seen, go out, see birbs, say which ones you saw, and it keeps a list for you.

>>2292331
Cornell Lab of Ornithology beat you to it.

Over the past 15 years they've created:

eBird (an online repository for bird sightings and all the data it generates)
Merlin (an ID app)
All About Birds (the info part of your hypothetical Pokedex)
The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds (and photos/video too)
And a few other things, most of which are linked to one another and out there in existing app form.

>>2292331
If you manage to get your hands on a huge bird image dataset with the corresponding annotations (bird name for each image), you would be able to create a neural network to automatically identify birds

>>2292407
That's quite a neat idea with the virtual aspect. My hope is to get all ages excited about birds, so something like that could be a really neat core feature.

>>2292589
It would be quite a bit of work. Luckily I come from an app design/graphic design background, so I have a good group of people who would be willing to wok on this.

>>2292635
Kind of. I really like eBird and use it all the time, but don't feel that the interface is particularly conducive to use on a phone. My app would also focus more on being a bright, enjoyable journal more akin to what kids felt with a Pokedex than what hardcore birdwatchers would be using. I hate this word, but I want to add a "gamification" element to it.

>>2292645
I absolutely love the Merlin app. It was actually a huge inspiration for my own, it's so simple to use, and really quite accurate.

As with the above post, my app would focus more on turning bird watching into a game for people who wouldn't traditionally be into that kind of thing.

The hope is that once they had cataloged all of the common city birds, they would be incentivized to take a hike or get out of their bubble in search for "rarer" species.

If just a few people wind up being more interested in birds as a result, it will have been worth it.

>>2292331
I'd use it. I have a bird feeder in my backyard and have been wanting to get into watching and cataloging what i see.

I like the virtual pet idea, but also keep in mind how much of the phone battery this app will use. People will often be outside, away from outlets. You don't want it being like Pokemon Go where the app that was supposed to get kids outside, ends up killing their phone in a half hour.

Will there be something that will say if the bird is endangered, at risk, common, etc? Would it be based on location? Some birds are endangered in some locations but common in others.

I'm going to suggest a way to add friends, and a library of photos for authenticity. Beyond that, maybe a commenting system or rating system for photos, but that's really reaching

>>2292645

Shit, they are even pushing pretty hard on trying to get your phone to able to ID birds from live photographing.

http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/merlinphotoid/

If they can get this technology nailed your phone literally will be a Pokedex for flying types, just point it at a bird and it tells you what you want to know. It's just like in my Japanese animes!

>>2292680
Turning into a real life game sounds neat, good luck OP. I do like eBird's top 10 lists for each location. It makes me want to go out and see more so I can get to the top of the chart. I like that competitive element. So far the best I've gotten is a tie for second place at one park.

>>2292866

I usually do the opposite, find the places that people don't go, or haven't reported from yet, or establish new hotspots for different parts of a national park or wma that people may not frequent as much.

One of the ornithology gurus at the state college here is an advocate of "WalMart parking lot lists," as he calls them, which is just putting down personal checklists for anywhere you are, as opposed to just going to already established hot spots. It's always wierd how many people who use eBird have never even submitted a list from their own yard.

>>2292900
Around here it's pretty populated and I'm new so I go where there's known things until I git gud. I don't do yard lists because then people can search by species and find out where you live.

>>2292680
>The hope is that once they had cataloged all of the common city birds, they would be incentivized to take a hike or get out of their bubble in search for "rarer" species.
Thats extremely unlikely to happen, unfortunately. Look at PokemonGO. Its already dead. If Pokemon can't stay alive with the concept then this isn't going to either. Limit people to being forced to go somewhere else for birds and people will get bored of it even faster. You want something that people won't only use by needing to go out and go somewhere. You need to give them a reason to keep the app instead of just deleting it after the initial novelty.

>>2292331
information about the negative effects of outdoor cats. that would help a lot of birds