Posted by Matt | Posted in Social Websites | Posted on 08-29-2010
If you’re like me and love to try new foods then you might find this site interesting. It’s a combination of Yelp and Foursquare in that the focus is on restaurants and users can earn points and badges. However instead of multiple reviews/descriptions this site makes food the star (as it should be). Foodspotting allows users (aka Foodspotters) to either upload or email pictures of the food they’ve tried at various local restaurants. From there the community can nominate (known as “noms”) the foods they’ve tried and liked the best. Users can earn points and keep running lists of foods ‘spotted’, ‘nommed’, and ‘wanted’, of course in addition to earning badges such as ‘Seafood’, ‘Dessert’, and ‘Sushi’.
They also have a very cool (and free) iPhone app that perfectly replicates the website experience. I think an app like this is absolutely necessary for a website in this niche and they definitely hit the nail on the head. If you have an iPhone I highly recommend downloading the app (just go to the App Store and search ‘foodspotting’). So what do you guys think, next time you’re hungry but don’t know where to go would you consider checking out Foodspotting?
Posted by Matt | Posted in Jobs and Employment | Posted on 08-22-2010
Luckily we’ve moved past the days of having to use a paper phonebook to find local service providers (I mean really, who uses the YellowPages anymore?). Now we’re onto bigger and better options. We now have local search directories such as Google Places, Yahoo Local, and Bing Local, just to name a few. However all of these new local directories lack a few things. They essentially act the same way as the old YellowPages did, listing a business’ address, phone number, product/service offerings, etc. with the added bonus of some reviews mixed in. While this is a step in the right direction, Redbeacon takes it one step further.
Users can submit a request for whatever type of service they are looking for and can specify when, where, and exactly what they need to have done. Redbeacon will then send out a message to those service providers that match your criteria (that have of course created a Provider Services account) and then those providers can bid on your service request. From there you get to choose which provider you want to go with, based on their bid price, reviews, etc. Best of all this can all be done online, absolutely FREE.
In my opinion this site has a lot of potential. However I think for it to really take off, it’s going to need a lot of qualified service providers actively involved and bidding on service requests. What do you guys think, would you consider using Redbeacon for your local business needs?
