Business & Tech

Mobile App Hooks You Up With Fresh Fish in Half Moon Bay

FishLine 2 mobile app provides a real-time list of fresh seafood available from local fishing boats, fish markets and restaurants.

 

Local app makers at Phondini Partners, a Half Moon Bay based company that builds mobile applications for iPhone, iPad and Android platforms, are at it again.

What started out as a feature in the iCoastside Half Moon Bay community app for fishermen to alert consumers about fresh fish for sale off their boats in Pillar Point Harbor, has now turned into a mobile app that brings together buyers and sellers of fresh, local, sustainable seafood, serving the entire Central California Coast.

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It’s called FishLine 2, the first app to provide a real-time list of seafood available from local fishing boats, fish markets and restaurants.

Using crowdsourcing and Cloud technology, FishLine 2 makes it easy for the consumer to know exactly what they are being served by seeing what catch the local fishing boats are landing and which markets and restaurants they are selling it to. It also provides information about the fishing community including bios, stories, poetry, and recipes from the fishermen, descriptions of the fisheries and seafood in the areas, as well as an event calendar, weather, surf report and tide tables for waterfront activities.

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“FishLine 2 is the result of a year of work building upon the FishLine feature in our iCoastside Half Moon Bay community app,” said Joe Falcone, Founder, Managing Partner & CTO of Phondini Partners. “When FishLine became the most popular feature in iCoastside, we knew that we had to invest in the development of a separate app to fulfill consumer expectations.”

The original FishLine concept came about in response to the recovery of the Pacific salmon season in 2012. Fishing boats arrived in Pillar Point Harbor with loads of salmon, but there were no customers. FishLine allowed fishermen to tell consumers directly, and immediately, when they had fish to sell off their boats at the harbor.

“When we were invited last October to present FishLine at the 2013 National Working Waterfronts & Waterways Symposium, we realized that we had something special,” said Dan Blick, FishLine Product Manager. “The next step was to develop the FishLine into an app.”

To do this, Phondini turned its sights south to Morro Bay and recruited environmental scientist Julie Thomas to engage the vibrant fishing industry in San Luis Obispo County.

“So we applied for a grant from the Central California Joint Cable/Fisheries Liaison Committee to build the FishLine app,” said Thomas, now Local Project Manager for Phondini. “When we were awarded the grant in February, it not only funded FishLine’s expansion to cover six Central California ports from Port San Luis to Pillar Point, but also enabled inclusion of content from the committee-funded Faces of California Fishing project among other features.”

"I'm excited FishLine is expanding to serve the Central Coast with it's app that will bring local fishermen together with eager consumers of fresh seafood,” said Jeff Eckles, Chairman of the Morro Bay Harbor Advisory Board. “Its innovative approach will serve both the fishing industry as well as help consumers find fresh, local and properly-labeled seafood."

Read more on Half Moon Bay Patch:

  • Killer Whales Spotted Off Half Moon Bay
  • Why Was Limo Fire on San Mateo Bridge So Deadly?


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