Spread awareness about the Gulf Oil Spill using these handy apps

As many know, in the Gulf of Mexico at this very moment oil is gushing out of an exploded BP oil rig at uncontrollable rates. And if you’ve been watching the tech scene BP has been trying to quell all talk about them in the social media world, but hey, they can’t stop everything can they? So today lets go over some oil spill related apps shall we?

First off to the iPhone. Oil Reporter (review here) is an iPhone app that allows you to report oil spill conditions wherever you are. Now please don’t walk up to the oil, or touch the oil (all generally not good things) but do feel free to take a picture from a fair distance and tell all of the many response organizations what you’re seeing.

The app is free and has a pretty nice UI, and if you’re in an oil spill stricken area, it’s one of the many tools you have at your disposal to report the growing natural disaster that’s gushing onto your shores.

Next we have a twofer. Since they both basically accomplish the same goal, one is just a little spiffier because it’s from Google.

As with the ash cloud, Paul Rademacher has created another one of those “How big is the XXX” maps that compares the size of the spill to major world cities so you can really see the damage. Maybe Obama should have sent this over to David Cameron with a note saying “How would you like London to look like this!”

Next to last, Google the humanitarian has created a Crisis Response section completely devoted to the oil spill. It has recent news, things you can do to help and a handy map with quite a few filters that show different aspects and details of the spill, just no comparing to different cities around the globe.

If you’re into supporting/promoting awareness about the oil spill, PBS has a handy widget that you can embed on your webpage/blog. It has a live stream of the spill and a counter showing how many gallons of oil has leaked out so far. Great little widget to spread awareness!

All these apps/widgets are great for spreading awareness about the horrific oil spill in the gulf and hopefully it’ll all be resolved as soon as possible.