Folks -

The social networking tool "twitter" (www.twitter.com) is being employed by
some birders for rare bird alerting. Alerts can be sent using text messaging
(sms) on standard cell service - no smartphone required. True internet
access via smartphone (iPhone for e.g.) is still quite expensive - on the
order of $70/month I think for voice/data plan on AT&T. There are some pay
as you go data plans coming online but even these are pretty expensive from
what I've seen. Even with a mobile data plan twitter could be very useful
and there are plenty of smartphone twitter apps available. (Of course you
can also check your email from a smart phone.)

The following links provide more information on how to do this and an
example of how the Arkansas Audubon Society is using twitter to keep in
touch. WA birders would just need to agree on a hashtag - for example I just
tried #WArba and it's not being used by anyone. Once you create a twitter
sign on it's very easy to register your cell phone number and start texting
updates. I don't know if it's possible to receive twitter updates via text
messaging - further research needed.

this article describes how to use hashtags in your message to design a rare
bird alert -
http://www.kolibriexpeditions.com/birdingperu/blog/index.php/twitter-for-birders-part-2-rare-bird-alerts-with-twitter/

texting updates to twitter -
http://twitter.zendesk.com/forums/23786/entries/14589

How the Arkansas Audubon Society uses twitter -
http://twitter.com/Arkansasbirds


European birders have been using pager services for many years but this is a
different sort of beast and according to the first article above can cost up
to $400/year - for serious twitchers only!

Charles.

On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 3:26 PM, Hal Opperman <hal at catharus.net> wrote:

> Tim and all:
>
> Good question! Maybe the new e-mail list Tweeters-Alerts is a little bit
> ahead of the curve, but that's exactly the need it is designed to fill.
> Mobile devices such as BlackBerry and iPhone that provide access to the
> internet ("smartphones") allow birders to post their discoveries to the list
> in real time, and read the bulletins sent by others, from anywhere with cell
> phone service. As coverage improves and costs continue to come down, more
> and more Washington birders will be taking advantage of this technology. It
> has been in widespread use for years among British birders, and perhaps by
> others elsewhere.
>
> For information about Tweeters-Alerts, please visit the Tweeters website
> at:
>
> http://www.scn.org/tweeters/
>
> Anyone may subscribe.
>
> Good birding!
>
> Hal Opperman
> Medina, Washington
> hal at catharus.net
>
> _______________________________________________
> Tweeters mailing list
> Tweeters at u.washington.edu
> http://mailman2.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters
>



--
Charles Swift
Moscow, ID
chaetura at gmail.com
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