“Sorry to pull you away from checking out your ex’s photo gallery, but Vitaminwater needs your help.” Offering an alternative use for Facebook, the beverage company is inviting users to create new flavours and vitamin content.

After adding the FlavorCreator app from Vitaminwater’s Facebook page, users can help influence the flavour, functional benefits and design of the new water. First, they are invited to choose their favourite of ten flavours, picked from the ten most mentioned flavours elsewhere on the web according to the app’s ‘buzz meter’. (Which means the crowds are indirectly and unwittingly contributing, too.) The second step lets users play games and answer quiz questions, helping Vitaminwater understand the most desired nutritional benefits, and which functional ingredients to add to the drinks. The last step lets users name the flavour, and decide the aesthetic and copy to be used on the bottle. Rapper 50 Cent and American Idol winner Carrie Underwood will help decide the winning submission, which comes complete with a USD 5,000 prize. The winner will be announced in December, with the flavour available from March 2010.

Product development contests aren't new, of course. But Vitaminwater stresses that this isn't just another marketing program: like Coca-Cola’s new Freestyle machine, the app enables the company to get feedback on the tastes du jour, producing products that are more likely to become best-sellers. R&D, product promotion and branding building: not a bad result from customers frittering away time on their lunch breaks ;-)

Website: www.vitaminwater.com — www.facebook.com/vitaminwater

Spotted by: Judy McRae

Mix-ins have been a staple in many ice cream shops for years already, allowing customers near infinite possibilities in designing their own creamy confection. Now bringing comparable potential to the world of cookies is Toronto's Sweet Flour Bake Shop, which lets patrons design their own baked treats and eat them fresh from the oven just two minutes later.

More than 15,000 possible combinations face Sweet Flour customers, who begin by choosing the cookie dough base they'd like: original, peanut butter or oatmeal. From there they can choose from among more than 20 mix-ins, including chocolate chunks, dried blueberries and toffee pieces. Little patience is required after that, for Sweet Flour's baking process requires only two minutes before the customised goodies are ready to devour. Cookies are CDN 2.50 each, or CDN 19 by the dozen. Also available at Sweet Flour are customised muffin tops, cookie sandwiches and a signature homemade granola with mix-ins and fresh fruit.

Is there any food consumers *don't* like to customise in some way? We tend to think not. Keep the design-your-own innovations coming! ;-)

Website: www.sweetflour.ca
Contact: www.sweetflour.ca/our-location

There are a multitude of foodie websites and blogs catering to most every culinary whim, but food52 is one with an especially clear premise: 52 weeks, 52 recipe contests, and a crowdsourced cookbook to celebrate the result.

Whereas the recent movie and book "Julie and Julia" chronicle a young food blogger's journey through "365 Days and 524 Recipes" using Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I," food52 is in many ways its opposite, celebrating instead the recipes of home cooks. Conceived in part by former New York Times food reporter Amanda Hesser—who has also written several cookbooks in her own right—the site is now on its 13th weekly contest, this time soliciting recipes for "your best beef salad" and "your best fruit tart." Visitors to the site have seven days to submit their favourite recipes for each week's category. Hesser and cofounder Merrill Stubbs then pick two finalists for each category, testing them and photographing them first; then, for 10 days the contest is opened up to voting. Winning recipes and author bios will go into the food52 cookbook, which will be published by Harper Studio; authors will also receive a selection of supplies from Oxo, the project's sponsor. Runners-up and other entries, meanwhile, will be highlighted on the food52 site, where users will also have a chance to offer their opinions on the food52 cookbook's photos, cover design and title.

food52 is currently in invitation-only beta—using, interestingly, Paperless Post to send its invites—but will reportedly open up to the public next week. An online store is coming soon, and Hesser and Stubbs hope to follow up the current project with future books as well. One to watch! (Related: Online marketplace for home-cooked meals — Customised cookbooks stir in online recipes.)

Website: www.food52.com
Contact: amanda@food52.com

Spotted by: Murtaza Ali Patel

Most people order pizzas when they're at home or at work. Aiming to broaden those delivery horizons, Domino's Pizza in the Netherlands recently placed white doors in the park and on the beach.

Dubbed Domino's Delivery Points, the doors prominently featured the company's phone number, as well as doorbells for delivery people to ring. Dutch director of marketing André ten Wolde explained that as long as they're within delivery range of a local Domino's, customers can have a pizza delivered pretty much anywhere: at the beach, on a boat, in the park, etc.

Targetting summer beach crowds and an influx of students in Amsterdam, the campaign—developed by creative agency Indie Amsterdam—draws on the power of showing instead of telling. Does your product or service have hidden benefits that you could demonstrate in an equally effective (and cost-effective) manner? (Related: Beach barbecue on call in Copenhagen — Balloon-enabled pizza delivery in Paris.)

Website: www.dominos.nl
Contact: www.dominos.nl/Corporate/contact

Spotted by: Judy McRae

When it comes to eating out, budget-squeezed consumers are increasingly seeking out wallet-friendly alternatives to the traditional, full-service restaurant meal, as we've already noted in our stories about Charlie's Burgers and Kogi Korean BBQ, to name just two. Picking up on that theme comes GoBYO, a site that aims to guide restaurant-goers to venues that will let them bring their own wine.

GoBYO maintains a database of more than 17,000 restaurants that allow patrons to bring their own wines in 10 metropolitan regions of the United States. Now covering Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Southeast Florida and Washington/Baltimore, the site includes "wine-friendly ratings," corkage fees, phone numbers, cuisines, features, price ranges, daily schedules and maps for each restaurant, as well as links to restaurant websites and reviews. (GoBYO contacts every listed restaurant frequently to confirm current data—most have been re-contacted within the past 90 days, it says.) Visitors to the site can search for a BYO-friendly restaurant by name, distance or type of cuisine as well as more than 40 other restaurant features—availability of live music or a children's menu, for example. Results can be sorted or filtered, and links for each restaurant present Google maps and reviews on Yelp and beyond. GoBYO's FAQ page includes a section on BYO etiquette, and for restaurants that participate in OpenTable.com, consumers can even click to reserve a table. An iPhone app is also available, as is a special carrying case that holds up to three bottles of wine.

Created by the makers of DiningInfo.com—which tracks restaurants with waiter service—ad-supported GoBYO is currently free for both restaurants and users. One to partner with or emulate in a wine-loving—but markup-shy—city near you...?

Website: www.gobyo.com
Contact: www.gobyo.com/popup.php?act=contact_us

Spotted by: Cecilia Biemann