For many urban dwellers, deciding what to have for dinner means deciding which restaurant to visit—a task that's not easy when you live in a place like New York City, with countless eateries to choose from. Eatbite/NYC is a new site that lets users browse through photos of individual dishes at local restaurants to let their craving of the moment dictate where they eat.
Eatbite currently features a collection of more than 200 photos of mouth-watering dishes that are served up at restaurants throughout New York City. Users can browse those photos sequentially for inspiration, or they can search by location, price range, landmark (near Columbia University, for example) or food type (Chinese, sushi or pizza, etc.). When they click on a photo of a dish that attracts their attention, the site tells them where to get it along with the price range to expect. Photos are tagged by key descriptors, and users can add comments to photos of any dish. They can also upload photos of their own and link them with restaurants from Eatbite's list.
In offering an alternative way to search information that is already widely available, ad-supported Eatbite is in many ways much like Dishola, which we covered earlier this year, but with less of a focus on reviews and more of a focus on photo-based inspiration. It also shares something in common with SeeYourHotel, which offers a slightly different twist on hotel search by focusing narrowly on location. Either way, Eatbite gives people a new way to search and restaurants another way to be discovered. Similar opportunities? On a general level, invite the crowds to contribute content of some kind, focus on a specific search criterion, and keep your costs low by using services like Amazon’s S3 for flexible hosting and Google's AdSense for easy ad income. Now that's a recipe worth sharing! ;-)
Website: www.eatbite.com
Contact: admin@eatbite.com
Spotted by: Mina Zakhary
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Brian: Don't forget that the pictures on Eatbite are taken by customers, in contrast to the point-to-eat stock photos used on most tourist menus. While most people won't need to be shown what a filet mignon is, pictures can be far more evocative and informative than written descriptions. And—as usual— this isn't an either/or situation: the point is to offer consumers the search method that appeals to them at any particular moment.
Bad Idea: If anyone has experienced eating at a Seaside or touristy area restaurant where they display pictures of the food, then a well-healed traveller will know to avoid these restaurants at any cost. Just as a great restaurant doesn't need to post their prices outside, A good restaurant doesn't need to show ignorant consumers what a 'Filet Mignon' looks like!
Brian Gallagher | December 3, 2008 9:58 PM