My friends frequently call me up to ask me whether a particular fish species is ok to eat.  If I’m near my computer, I usually go to Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch site to look up the fish in question, but I’m often caught away from a computer.

Luckily, the Blue Ocean Institute has launched fishphone.org, a web site formatted for web-enabled mobile phones and PDAs.  All you have to do before you order fish at a restaurant is hit the website on your mobile phone and choose a fish species in the drop-down menu.  If you don’t have a web-enabled phone, you can SMS 30644 with the text, “FISH fishtype”.  The SMS database isn’t as complete as is the website, but it’s a start.