foodha for thought - menuism blog

Did you know that I had a burrito and pizza last night? And that I followed it up with a banana?

You would if you checked out my Menuism GutChecks. GutChecks are a lightweight way for you to track what you’re eating at all times. If it’s something at home or a light snack, just type it in and update your GutCheck. Or if you just ate out at a restaurant, write a review and a GutCheck will automatically get created for you.

Updating

There are a few easy ways to update your GutChecks:

• On the top right corner there’s always a section that says what you’re currently eating along with an “Update” link. Just click that and a form will show up.
• On the right-hand side of your dashboard, there’s directions for a link you can drag to your browser’s bookmark bar that says “I’m Eating…”. Just click that to update your status from wherever you’re browsing.
• If you have a Twitter account, your GutChecks can be automatically imported after you link your Twitter account to your Menuism account (do this on your settings page). For example, anytime I update my Twitter status (see image below) with “ate”, “eat” or “eating”, Menuism automatically updates my GutCheck eating status. Check out the coverage on on Mashable.

Sharing

What good is updating your eating status if you can’t share it? The easiest way to share it is with our image widget that get’s constantly refreshed with your latest GutCheck. My widget is shown in the top right. You can also see mine and John’s on the Menuism MySpace page . Just check the right hand side of your dashboard for the code to copy into your webpage or blog.

So what are you waiting for? Let us in your belly and see what you’re eating!

Justin

Some of you might have noticed that things look pretty different on Menuism. We’ve been listening hard to your feedback and decided to give the site a facelift for the better. Menuism is all about helping you eat better, and one of the biggest goals of the update was to give a lot more focus to users and how they related to each other and the restaurants they dine at. Here’s a quick tour:

• Left Context / Action / Menu Bar
  • The top part of the left menu column is the context data. On a city, user, or restaurant’s page, you can expect to see a snapshot of relevant information here.
  • Right under the pages that have a context box, there might be an action button section. These are the important actions you can take on that page. If you don’t know what to do, look there.
  • The Menu Bar has a bunch of colored tabs that show you what kind of content is available to you.
• Header
  • We tried to clean up the header a little bit and make search a little more straight-forward. You can easily hit the restaurant, food, and user search from the top.
  • On the top right, you’ll always have quick access to your home, try list and settings. When in doubt, just click on your own pretty picture!
• Content
  • The content is a bit more organized now. You’ll notice that things are more contained and many of the boxes have a link on the top right to either go to a more detailed page or take action.

This is only the start. There will be more changes and optimizations rolled out, but we wanted to get the basic layout change out so everyone could start playing with it. If you’ve got feedback or more ideas, let us know!

Stay tuned for more exciting announcements.

-Justin & John

Yes, the day we’ve been waiting for all month is finally upon us! This week is National Pancake Week, and specifically, today is National Pancake Day, which you might know better as Shrove Tuesday, or Mardi Gras.

To celebrate this wondrous day of fluffly, griddle-cooked batter, IHOP is giving away one free shortstack of pancakes today. More details here, and here are some quick links to find them in the following areas:

• Seattle
• Chicago
• New York
• San Francisco

What better way to celebrate National Pancake Week and participate in the ongoing Food Fight than by enjoying some free flapjacks? If plain buttermilk pancakes aren’t your thing, you can try lots of other specialty pancakes that users have already found. There are still lots of pancakes to eat (and reviews to write) for this Food Fight - get crackin’!

-John

Quick Reminder: Write reviews to enter the end of month t-shirt drawing!

At the end of the month, we’ll be giving away a free Menuism t-shirt to one of Foodha’s Picks. If you haven’t noticed yet, Foodha randomly picks a top tipped review over the past 30 days to display on the front page (since he likes food so much, the review has to include a review of the food). On January 1st, we’ll load up the front page of Menuism and see who the random winner is (excluding John and Justin of course - we already have shirts :P).

Right now, the users that look to be in the running are:

• Shaomai
• Mandeelish
• Mirabell_19

If you don’t want to write reviews but you want a t-shirt, then buy one at the Menuism Shop. We also have dark gray hoodies now too, but they aren’t up on the page yet. Send us an email if you want one of those.

Some tips on getting tipped:

• After you write a review, click on the “Share” link on the review confirmation page to send it to your friends or the people you dined with. Tell them to join to tip you!
• Invite your friends to join the site so they can keep track of all your recent reviews.
• Good reviews don’t just mean reviews with high ratings. Make sure your review is useful, helpful, and/or entertaining.

If you enjoy the review, give it a tip! ‘Tis the season for giving afterall

Happy Eating,

Justin