NOAH: Networking Organisms and Habitat
In this, one of the most populated states in the country (New Jersey), it’s very common to look at animal or plant existence as something incidental, like a background, unless it’s tied to human interests (as with a pet, a garden, or an orchid collection). But NOAH gives us the opportunity to put organisms on the map, and grow a community with like interests at the same time.

Many of us have had the experience of encountering wildlife, either animal or plant, and snapping a photo. Maybe we upload it to Flickr, maybe we just keep it on our computers, maybe we send it to a friend in a text message, but we don’t think of how useful the combination of the GPS coordinates and the organism’s image are for science. Mostly, social media has focused on the “me” experience: this is where I am, this is what I am doing, and ignored the very busy non-human world all around us.

Released in February, we think this iPhone app shows great promise,  both as a means to make use of a  large (and free) workforce to collect data, and as a a resource that allows users to look at what wildlife is present, anywhere that NOAH’s data is being collected. And they do have some of the classic social media bells and whistles, too: top contributors get prominent placement of their profiles.