August 28, 2013
SOCIAL
In Defense of Sharing Food Photos on Social Media
This week, San Francisco’s restaurant news blog, Inside Scoop, published a defense of sharing food photos on social media. The post makes great points. Among them: many people who post food photos care an awful lot about food and the food they’ve eaten. I’ve long held that food photos are the best way to remember a special trip, vacation, or just the details of an evening out.
But there’s still a quality issue. SF restaurant critic, called out in the piece (granted, he publishes there as well) for being excellent to follow on Twitter, posts some great imagery of his dining adventures. He also posts plenty of images making the food look less than stellar (example here.)
There’s a reason food photography is its own discipline and plenty of pro photogs specialize in it. Hence, the taking-posting-sharing food photos becomes a tricky business. I care about what I’m eating, but I bet restaurants care how their food is represented online. So, I say, the jury’s still out on the merits of posting and sharing your dinner… at least until our phones can take better pictures in any setting. (Worth noting: Evernote Food has made great progress in this area.)
BEST OF
Stop-Motion Dumpling How-to
This week is “Dumpling Week” on NPR, and to supplement its (obviously awesome) dumpling-related content (I’m partial to this discussion on what actually constitutes a dumpling), it posted a very well-done stop-motion Instagram video, aptly titled “How to Make Potstickers.” While the video itself is a very fast overview of the potsticker process, watching the delicious filled bundles of dough go from zero to sixty in ten seconds makes for great viewing. Plus, it ends with this week’s #nprdumplingweek hashtag. Smarties.
UPDATE: There’s another one! Today’s video: How to Make Tortelloni. Can’t wait to see what’s postedtomorrow.
WELP
A Chef’s POV on the Threat of Bad Yelp Reviews
This week, Boston’s Tony Maws published a fantastically well-written perspective on “bad customers.” Among them, those who get in the server’s (or host’s, or chef’s) face and threaten to leave a bad Yelp review if they aren’t served to their exact liking. The piece offers an excellent point-of-view of the hospitality industry generally, as well as observations from the service side (including how ridiculous you’d sound threatening a bad Yelp review for something outside of the restaurant’s control.) It’s a nice piece, worth a read.
WHERE IT’S AT
Seamless Touting Mobile Usage with Discount
In what is an obvious mobile promotion, Seamless now gives 10% off of orders placed through its mobile app.
This is, of course, a smart move by Seamless marketing — but is also indicative of a new and improved process in the food industry generally. As more consumers use mobile to do more things, ordering, paying for, and receiving food are natural fits for the mobile landscape. Products like Square and Google do this with their respective Card Case and Wallet features; OpenTable is testing it with its pay-by-app feature.
Though I am curious how long it will take to start to miss all of the human interaction previously involved in our food ordering and purchasing moments…
SAVVY
Texts from TK
Totally radical and totally tech-savvy Thomas Keller sends texts of praise for a job well done in the kitchen — at least, he did after a night at New York’s Cafe Boulud. Executive Chef Gavin Kaysenposted a screenshot of the text, presumably sent after Chef Keller dined at his restaurant, on Instagram. Who wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of that?
Digestifs
- Food & Wine’s Digital Food Awards honor exceptional food bloggers — Food & Wine
- A new way to crowdfund craft beer — Food+Tech Connect
- Maybe, possibly, perhaps Yelp might help “clean up” restaurants by including health scores in ratings — The Atlantic
