BirdPost at TechCrunch…

TC50: Niche social networks thrive, for birdwatchers, fashion-conscious, dead people and more » VentureBeat:

Information on where and how to find birds is what glues the birdwatching community together, but most of it is not in a centralized location. Birdpost wants to move the existing offline social network of birdwatchers online. Aside from connecting active birdwatchers, it also wants to add in GPS location services to show where species can be located (you can use your GPS-enabled iPhone if you want), and alerts for hard-to-find watching opportunities.

Of course, if you’re anything like me, excessive talk about birds makes your watching apparatus glaze over. If that’s the case, it’s the market size that makes this exciting: 13 million people spending $32 billion a year on travel, binoculars and, well, whatever else birdwatchers buy. As the founder said on stage, “The wealthier a person is, the more likely they are to be a birdwatcher.”

This may look interesting to non-birders, but from my point of view, all I see is a venture-funder version of eBird minus the data hooks into Cornell’s research group and with flashier graphics (and likely advertising staring us at the face). I don’t really see that this adds to the birding community so much as potentially split it between BirdPost users and eBird users (as well as the “neither” group!).

I’ll have to do some more exploring, but to me, this looks to be a “me, too!” offering. nothing really innovative or new, just commercial. and funded instead of the ebird grassroots version.

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