CBS Sunday Morning News aired a segment this morning about iNaturalist.
How iNaturalist app users have fun while aiding science - CBS News
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I thought it was an excellent story!
I wonder if Martha Stewart has been a contributor to iNaturalist, beyond opening her farm for the iNat staff to hold a bioblitz?
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I didnāt realize a bioblitz is a timed competition.
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Yeah, most bioblitzes are specific events designed to document as many species as possible in a given time (usually a few hours or a day). See more at https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/resources#bioblitz
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it looks like they probably recorded the segment back in June of 2025. i wonder why theyāre airing the segment just now?
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We have the Martha Stewart spike in obs now.
i donāt see any obvious spike in observations. it looks like the usual spring increase:
ā¦
i think youāre referencing the big spike in new users. itās possible the segment led to a ton of new signups (assuming itās not some sort of bot activity), but most of those folks havenāt observed anything yet.
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Yes THAT spike. If you tip the Daily Users graph to show a full year, observers has spiked to CNC levels. Now. But identifiers plod on, slow and steady.
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Definitely a spike in new users and downloads from the CBS piece.
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I only found about this because a family friend had mentioned it to me.
Hopefully this can help drive up identifiers!
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And I found a batch from the 18th birthday project.
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I think itās a numbers game, Robbie, so itās inevitable (which is good)
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/pareto-principle-online-participation/
Some tiny percentage of new users will become serious regular users
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/open-letter-of-apology-for-once-being-a-reckless-user/
And some tiny percentage of those serious users will become serious identifiers
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Itās been 6 years since I joined and no one my age has been able to match my pace of observations that joined after I did.
Iāve tapered off so much the past 3 years but still no one has passed me? Itās unfortunate.
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Yup; I went through a bunch of Unknowns in Colorado last night, the majority of which were from newbie users who all joined on the 22nd. So, Iām guessing about five minutes after the segment aired. And most of those observations wereāyou guessed itāhouseplants.
My boilerplate cut-n-paste welcome was getting a workout. Iām also editing it to emphasize that all of the nice people providing IDs are site users and volunteers, so even adding an initial ID of something as simple as āplantsā is very helpful.
Some may stick around. Some may even read my welcome and decide to try their hand at IDing themselves. I hope so. That being said, Iām not holding my breath. As we say around here, nobody looks good in that color of blue.
EDITED: Sorry, I just realized that I came off as kind of salty, if not downright spicy. Blame is on me; I havenāt been able to get out myself, and I may be going a wee bit stir-crazy. 
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very common for these kind of segments to be filmed many months in advance, same thing happens for a number of gardening/nature based tv programs in Australia. The hosts usually have a super jam-packed schedule booked out well in advance, so thereās a backlog to be aired
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Iāll add my salt and spice to āeven a broad ID is helpfulā. I started with about 64 pages ā¦ and have bashed it down to 44. About a page a day, if you can find an identifier willing to tackle them. I narrowed my URL down with filters. Dicots 55K ! In the Western Cape 229 pages With Disagreement 44 pages Remind me again how āplantsā is helpful. Very ?
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Very nice of you welcoming new users!
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I will be excited when I see any effort to recruit identifiers.
Good question, Larry. This is a marketing angle (to promote iNaturalist) that I havenāt seen (celebrities promoting iNaturalist). There must be some celebrities who are nature lovers who use the platform. A lot of celebrities have ranches in Wyoming, tropical island properties, etc. I donāt see many downsides to being a celebrity who uses iNaturalist. If youāre flooded with DMās, you can ignore them, and more identifiers might look at your observations.
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Itās a very granular searchable public record of where you are, where youāve been, and where you like to go. I suspect for a lot celebrities that would come with many downsides. Yes, you could obscure locations but thatās not perfect and itās extra work.
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