Fish Phone: text a fish while shopping or dining

In the Civic Engagement on the Move report that I wrote for the Aspen Institute, I included this passage:

Jed Alpert, co-founder and chief executive officer of Mobile Commons, pointed to FishMS, a text service in South Africa that was set up to help consumers choose seafood with the least adverse impact on the environment. A conscientious consumer could text in the name of the fish and get a color-coded response on the status of local seafood species.

The World Wildife Fund reported: Species marked with a green fish can generally be eaten with a clear conscience because their population numbers are healthy. Orange means they’re legal to sell, but if you have a choice you should opt for one of the ‘green’ species. Species marked in red are illegal to buy or sell in South Africa.

More about that South African program here and at MobileActive.org.

So I was intrigued when I was listening to Living on Earth on KQED Friday and heard the report about the fish phone. Looks like the idea has now caught on Stateside (though no mention of its South African origins). From the story:

When you’re in the supermarket or ordering fish at a restaurant, ever have trouble remembering which species has high mercury, which is overfished, and which is the most sustainable? Now, a new text messaging service can tell you everything you need to know, whether one fish, two fish, red fish or blue fish. Living on Earth’s Ashley Ahearn takes her cell phone to a local market to find out how the Fish Phone works.

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JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.