We are approaching the end of the year and we wanted to update you on current and future improvements. Our team is busy at work growing the BlooSee platform and we are thankful to have your contributions. The ocean is our largest ecosytem and the ultimate environment for adventure. We are dependent on the sea for so many reasons. The BlooSee team is thrilled to roll out some new features starting this New Year as our community of ocean lovers continues to grow. Going forward we are happy to answer any of your questions. We want to make sure your BlooSee experience is as enjoyable as possible. Here’s a sneak peak of what you can expect.

• We improved the infopoint creation process by adding a step-by-step wizard. But we’ll continue to update it to make the process even easier.
• The Boat Directory is up and running in beta. The directory will be ready for everyone to use early in the new year. We’ll roll out various boat types (sail yachts, motor yachts, tall ships…) in different stages. We’re sure it will be an exciting new feature to play around with soon. We’ll also have pages for companies, organizations and institutions.
• The America’s Cup is coming to San Francisco in 2013, but other events in the world series are planned in different venues. As preparations begin for the race, we will be bringing you as much information as possible, with a dedicated site for it.
• We’ll improve media management, the weather forecast, and add tools like a new review system or digital dive logs for divers.
• A focused commitment to conservation. We at BlooSee plan to do our part to to protect the Ocean and all of her bounty. In 2012 we will be implementing a number of initiatives that will benefit from your participation. As our community grows stronger, so will our efforts.

We will be keeping you updated on these developments as they happen. You can stay up to date on all new features and just about everything ocean related by following us on Twitter. End 2011 with some Geotags and share some infopoints. Let’s take the ocean further.

BlooSee.com has been completely redesigned and upgraded.

Log on to the new BlooSee.com and enjoy!

BlooSee’s app is really intuitive to use. In fact, its user interface is quite similar to the Maps app of your iPhone. A crosshairs button allows you to go to your real location, while a search function takes you to any place in the planet using Google’s geo search engine.  You can also search for specific infopoints, and use your fingers to zoom in, out, and move around the world visually.

Nautical charts. Tap the chart icon  to view official nautical charts for North America (NOAA), Brazil, New Zealand, and the vast majority of the Pacific Ocean. A slider control allows you to adjust the transparency of the chart.

Worldwide wind conditions: Tap the sails icon to activate the wind layer. A slider control allows the user to adjust the transparency of the wind layer, while buttons in the lower part of the screen provide wind predictions for the next 6, 12, 18 and 24 hours.

So, now you have a map app for the 70% of the world that Google Maps doesn’t cover! ;-)   –plus winds, charts, user generated infopoints, photos, and more.

What are you waiting for? Download it now!

The truth is that tweeting about stuff that is happening in and around oceans and shorelines can be a challenge. The reason? How do I tweet about a threatened dolphin pod in Japan, a sea lion rookery in California, an exploding oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, a fancy new marina in Dubai, a diving spot in the Philippines, or a a great surfing spot in Fiji? What is the URL of a place in or on the water?

This is a problem that BlooSee solves perfectly since it allows any ocean lover to find and/or create points of interest in the ocean and shorelines in a matter of seconds. These points are given a unique URL that anyone can tweet, either directly from the “Share /Twitter” button on BlooSee or by grabbing the URL (Via the Share/URL button) and shortening and tweeting it as usual. Here are some examples:

• Watching @TheCoveMovie: see the spot where dolphins are slaughtered: http://bit.ly/dwMuzu
• Exploring the USS Yukon shipwreck off San Diego http://bit.ly/d2dhnW #SCUBA
• Shacketon’s 100 year-old whiskey found in Atarctica http://bit.ly/aGnM0M

BlooSee also allows anyone to tweet maps of the ocean centered and zoomed in a certain way. For instance:

• Sailing the Straits of Gibraltar http://bit.ly/ajZBfl
• Kayaking along the southern coast of Santa Cruz Island http://bit.ly/9SNrM6
• Planning a vacation to the Istria Coast in Croatia http://bit.ly/cPZU3Y

BooSee has been created with twitter-friendliness in mind.   BlooSee + Twitter allows anyone to bring the oceans into the online conversation, for a better enjoyment and stewardship of the world’s oceans.

(This post was originally published on TwiTip.com)

Short entry to inform everyone that we’ve just updated our iPhone app. There was this nasty bug in the logout sequence that made the application crash. No longer.

What’s more important to most users, the infopoint icons load faster now! So we recommend everyone to update it.

What’s New In Version 1.0.4

- General speed improvements in loading infopoint information
- “Logout” button bug fixed (application no longer crashes at user logout)
- Minor bug fixes

You may have noticed some changes on the system, as we’ve updated it to improve useability.

Better groups

First thing you’ll see is that we’ve split the former “Community” area into two new tabs: “Friends” and “Groups”. The latter has seen major changes: you now have the ability to create private groups, you can search groups by different criteria and, in general, we’ve improved all that has to do with groups and discussions so you can use them to build your own sea-loving community within BlooSee.

The “Friends” tab will be improved as well, with the ability to search for people you might know, using different criteria.

Improved dashboard

You’ll also notice that the dashboard shows now global statistics on infopoints and routes (we’ve gone beyond the 2,000 infopoints mark now!), as well as those created by you and your circle of friends. And for those, it will allow you to keep track of who is more active in terms of infopoint and route creation, uploading of pictures, etc.

General improvements

Changes don’t end here, as we’ve tweaked and optimized different minor aspects as well. On the “Explore” tab, for example, the taxonomy has been slightly refined once more. Call us perfectionists, but we want to make sure that users have the most comprehensive, logical, and clear way of adding geolocated information to the global chart.

BlooSee on your mobile device

We’re also happy to anounce that it is now possible to access the BlooSee geolocated information on an augmented reality application, Layar. For those of you who have an Android-based mobile phone or an iPhone, you can get the Layar application for free [edit: the Layar application cannot temporarily be found on the iPhone App Store for technical reasons, it should be available soon, but please note this is beyond our control]. Once you have it installed, simply search for BlooSee within the application. You’ll be able to access all of our infopoints, with their information overlaid on the real images from your phone. It’s pretty neat!

And, in case you were wondering, our very own iPhone application is in the works. We don’t want to disclose dates for things yet unfinished, but soon you’ll be able to download the first version of the iPhone app, with the ability to access the same map you see now on you web browser. And an Android version will follow.

Changes include:

• Extended data panel for infopoints automatically opens when adding/editing infopoints. Also, more types of infopoints have extended fields than before.
• Photo albums have a clearer navigation, where you first see all pictures as thumbnails, and then choose which one you want to start with.
• Message when accepting friends invitations has been corrected, with no overlapping of buttons over text — it will, however, be improved in the future.
• Much better search results, organized by type.
• A meaningful “404 page not found” message — it was a shame to have kept the old one for so long (ouch!).
• Long user names appear now correctly on Dashboard.
• Improvements on the comments interface.
• Other minor miscellaneous corrections.

And we’ll keep improving… but you knew that already!

The addition of a couple of types under Facilities (namely Yacht club, and Sailing school) is something we should have done a while ago, and some users were asking for them. So here they are.

But we’ve also re-thought the placement of certain types and put them under different categories than they were originaly. We believe it makes much more sense like this.

New set of infopoint categories

Finally, we’re very happy to have a couple of new and important categories: Art and history, and Ocean conservation. Hey, this is when we can actually say our system is for sea-lovers! Even though we know many users will want to use our system to exchange critical data (facilities, aids to navigation, dangers…) or practical information (services, hotels and restaurants, shops…), true sea-lovers will appreciate those two layers to learn about nautical traditions and history, as well as get conservation related info.

Humankind has been tied to the ocean since the origin of history, and the seas of the world have been the backdrop to adventures, explorations, battles, but also fears and hopes throughout the centuries. Isn’t it cool to be able to mark those places where special events took place, or where traditions and legends originated? (I, for one, have already started: http://www.bloosee.com/r/i3eySCy)

And regarding our ocean conservation layer, we’ve said many times the ocean is not a mere highway for our boats: it is a living entity that we need to protect as much as we enjoy. So on BlooSee, users will be able to publish particular spots to see certain types of species (whales, sharks, seals, seabirds…), but also mark areas needing special protection, tag spots with a pollution concentration level higher than normal, etc. From BlooSee we want to contribute as much as we can to having a “green approach to the blue world”, and this new layer is only the beginning.

All in all, we hope you’ll like our new layer set!