foodha for thought - menuism blog

We just recently noticed that we have a nice little mention on the Restaurants page in wikipedia.  Pretty cool!

One interesting twist is Menuism.com, they review the dishes rather than the restaurant.

- from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restaurant#Restaurant_guides

Let us know if you see any other Menuism mentions!

Justin

You might have already caught the announcement on our business blog or seen the giant badge on the left side of the front page, but I just wanted to let our other readers and users know that we got Honorable Mention for City Guides & Reviews in SEOmoz.org’s Web 2.0 2007 awards!

We’re honored to have our progress recognized and we’re tremendously thankful to YOU, our users. You get even more thanks if you’re a registered user. As always, if you have any feedback or suggestions, let us know!

Thanks and Happy 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

March is here and the seasons are a-changin’! A new month means a new Food Fight, and this month we’re asking YOU to help us find the BEST BURGER in your city!

To participate, just review a restaurant and rate the burger you ate. You’ll be automatically entered into the contest to win $50 - you can find out all the nitty-gritty details at the main Food Fight contest page.

Fun fact: the average American consumes 27.8 pounds of hamburger a year. That works out to over 9 quarter-pound burgers a month, per person. Why not share your favorites, so everyone can enjoy a better burger?

Happy Eating!

John & Justin

p.s. We’re still tallying the best pancake results from February, and we’ll post the results soon.

In honor of National Pancake Week (Feb 18-24), we’re starting a Pancake Food Fight! This will be the first in a line of monthly Food Fights where YOU get to decide what the BEST food is in your city!

It’s easy to participate. Review a restaurant and rate the pancake you had and you’ll be automatically entered into the contest. For more info, check out the main Food Fight contest page.

If you’re ready to eat, let the pancakes fly!

Happy Eating!
Justin & John

For more info, read the full press release or check out the Food Fight contest page to get started.

Since opening up a few weeks ago, Menuism’s been growing steadily thanks to positive buzz around features like Yahoo! Sign In and the ability to rate what you ate. Today we got another great publicity boost - we were added to the Yahoo! directory!

Even cooler, we were highlighted as a “new and notable” site, which has helped bring lots of visitors closer to the wisdom of Foodha. With today’s boost, we’ve passed a milestone of 400 registered users! Hooray, or more aptly, Yahoo!

Returning users have probably noticed a big change on the front page. The big stars and “rate what you ate” button make it easy for anyone to start writing a review, which we’ll cover in depth in a future post.

Additionally, we’re proud to introduce Foodha’s Picks, which show off reviews that are beautiful examples of how users rate what they ate. How can your review get chosen? Simple, just write a review:

• that rates what you ate (include one or more menu items)
• that other users love (receives lots of tips)

That’s it! New Foodha’s Picks are being chosen constantly - your very next review could be one. And what do you get for getting a Foodha’s Pick? Let’s just say that you have our deepest appreciation, and possibly more in the future (once we think of something). Any suggestions?

-John

Well the past week was pretty fun. A bunch of mentions have resulted in a pretty good rise in traffic and about 86 new users - welcome to the family! Here’s a quick recap:

• Sunday Oct 22, got a mention on TechCrunch as part of a TechCocktail wrap-up. It looks like showing up at TechCocktail and having a blast paid off (TechCocktail 2 Wrap-Up). Thanks Eric Olson and Frank Gruber for organizing and thanks Frank for the TechCrunch mention. Frank also mentioned us on his personal blog Somewhat Frank
  
• Monday Oct 23, listed on Go 2 Web 2.0
• Monday Oct 23, mentioned on Gapers Block
• Tuesday Oct 24, got posted on Museum of Modern Betas
  
• Thursday Oct 26, mentioned on Julian on Software
• Friday Oct 27, reviewed by Post Bubble and got a favorable “Floating” rating (which is better than the alternative “Sinking” rating).

Not to leave anyone out, here are some links from previous bloggers (I hope I didn’t miss anyone).

• Oct 2, Foodite Blog - From the cubicle to the kitchen
• Oct 2, Jetleigh Blog
• Oct 3, Biznik Blog - Networking that doesn’t suck
• Oct 3, Craz8 Blog - Software, Seahawks, Cheese and other Randomness
  
• Oct 3, Ms. Adventures in Italy
• Oct 6, VersioNext Blog
• Oct 8, Becks & Posh Blog - SF Bay Area Food Blog

We’re also starting to get some love on Del.icio.us too. If you’ve got a delicious account, bookmark us!

Thanks to everyone who’s helped spread the word. If you’re a blogger, and want to add us to your blogroll, you can use this 80×15 badge by downloading it to your blog account and using it as the link image: (more style and size varieties coming soon).

If you want to spread some Foodha love in the physical world, a batch of T-shirts are on the way - stay-tuned!

- Justin