Loading ...Innovation! A reef related website that isn’t a forum!
We’ve covered this a few times on this blog and I hope it’s the start of a trend. This hobby needs innovation on the intertubes and one of the first steps is a new site called ReefLines.
The idea behind ReefLines is to develop a time-line, or lineage for a piece of coral. It helps answer the question, where did that frag come from?
I can see ReefLines giving value to collectors. How do you prove the frag of your ReefFarmer’s War Coral is actually a frag of the original War Coral colony? Simple, upload a picture of your coral, and link it to the user who gave it to you. From there, a network of coral will grow. It could become a virtual shopping list for collectors because it could answer “Who has a frag of the Tyree Superman Montipora available?”.
You can upload updated pictures of your coral which gives you the bonus of tracking the growth of your coral.
Of course, where there’s money there’s greed and dishonesty unscrupulous people are there to take advantage of the system. There’s nothing to stop you from saying your frag is a genuine Purple People Eater, but it doesn’t quite look right because it’s a bad picture.
But most importantly let’s celebrate the dawn of a new era of websites for the reefing hobby. Bring on the innovation!
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In the hobby since 2001, and has seen all kinds of fads come and go. As he gets older, Jeff is developing more and more of a conscience towards environmental concerns, especially towards reefs. Currently, he writes from Ontario, Canada, but would rather be snorkeling on a reef.
Thanks for the reference Jeff, a couple comments:
I find reading someone else say that pretty cool. I’m continually surprised by all the ways people bend vbulletin and other forum software in slightly different ways for slightly different sites. People do some interesting things with that, but when it comes down to it, you’re taking a forum which is designed for conversations, and jamming a bunch of extra crap into it. I think that’s why I’m always so confused when trying to use those sites.
So that’s why I would much prefer to keep ReefLines from being another forum (or image host or …), and instead find ways to leverage all the good content in the forums that are already out there (and let them leverage ReefLines). The general thought being help the reefing community fill some gaps, instead of try and build a new reefing community.
“Tracking the growth” is why I built ReefLines for my own usage, but “the coral network” is what I think is most interesting. I think that’s important not only for the reasons you mention, but from a sustainability and helpfulness standpoint.
If you’re interested in sustainability, proof that the frag you’re about to buy came from an aqua-cultured parent, or from a parent who’s been fragged 10 other times, should give you comfort.
If you’re interested in keeping your corals healthy, seeing that the frag you want came from a wild-caught parent, which has other frags out there that are doing well, should give you comfort.
And eventually, if/when people provide more info on other corals in your lineage, seeing the other frags rock under high flow, and suffer under low-light should be more useful than seeing a genera “Flow Requirements for all Acros: High”.
Wow, going to check out the site now…