The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has begun work on a mobile application for either the iOS (iPhone / iPod Touch / iPad) or Android based devices in hopes of better educating the general public about coral reefs and ocean stewardship.  This application will be used for both national education (primarily ocean conservation) and local public education (primarily recreational fishermen) when it rolls out.

The Coral App will serve a national audience by displaying news content related to coral reefs featured in the CRCP’s web and Facebook pages, coral bleach warnings and seasonal outlooks, sustainable seafood consumer information, and other relevant NOAA data and information. The local audience (Florida) will be served by delivering state recreational fishery regulations applicable to a user’s exact location and time (including local MPA boundaries shown relative to user) and NOAA data relevant to local users (ocean temperature, currents, etc) into a single, user-friendly interface. Coral App will make state fishery regulations more accessible and add a mechanism for user interaction and tools to help disseminate recreational fishery regulations. (ref)

The app will initially focus on the general public with the second iteration adding local regulations for fishermen.

At this point they have not decided which platform to focus on – either iOS or Android.  Personally I’d like to see it developed for Android as it’s a more open system and as of April 2011 has significantly more market share.

What do you think?  Sound off in the comments below.

(via Yahoo!, FedBizOpps)