When Pedro Valdeolmillos' boat ran aground off Ibiza in the late 1990s, he decided that it was time to create a resource that comprehensively mapped the details of the world's oceans. In 2010, ten years after the incident, the Barcelonan incorporated BlooSee, a web-based product that is designed to condense information about oceans, seas and coasts into an on-screen platform.
After working in media and technology companies for 15 years, it was a natural progression for Valdeolmillos to establish his own tech startup based around his passion for sailing. After two years in development, the site includes features that allow users to create and share their own infopoints amongst the broader, geo-located database.
Though the project at first intended to cover the boating world, the platform now caters for any ocean-related information and interaction. Valdeolmillos and his team in San Francisco are now looking to partner with organisations to extract infopoints across surfing, sea kayaking and scuba.
As well as assessing opportunties across different activities, BlooSee are also exploring the possibilities of condensing raw data about ocean depths, tides and winds into the application.
BlooSee is an excellent example of the next era of social networking. As interest-related startups emerge in numerous social spheres around core content structures, it is refreshing that BlooSee is aiming to gather crowd-sourced information about the world's oceans.
Valdeolmillos has started to seek out new technological avenues to stimulate action within the marine community. The founder already invites boats to be listed as entities independent of their owners on the site, and aims to gamify interactions in this new social sphere.
As the website moves into mobile, BlooSee will need to look into ways to handle satellite connections and the reliability of devices. While these technologies continue to develop on a macro scale, it shall be interesting to see how BlooSee takes on the challenge of mapping over 70% of the world.
