Foodist Colony Updates Restaurant Guide App -- Twitter, Widgets, iPhone

We reviewed NY-based Foodist Colony last month. Foodist Colony is a service that allows you to create your own restaurant guide. They have added some major updates this week that are worth mentioning. They are tracking over 180 restaurant review blogs and pull in reviews in a newsfeed-style format.

Twitter access:

The app now allows you to send your Foodist Colony updates to your Twitter stream. Founder David Ziegler has it working on his account - @daz9nyc. There's also a main Foodist Colony Twitter account and David notes that they are working on settings for more user control over what gets sent to Twitter.

Yelp access:

You can tie in your Yelp account into Foodist Colony and when you add a review on Yelp, it will automatically be sent to your Foodist Colony account. Irene uses this service and she is one of the top NYC Yelp'rs.

iPhone update:

You can now rate establishments on the go on the iPhone and iPod Touch. This is very smart as it's way easier to do it while you are at the establishment rather than remembering to do it when you get home. This should increase the number of ratings and comments dramatically.

Updated widget:

The Foodist Colony widget is actually one of the more useful ones I've seen. It is created based on your reviews and ratings and when inserted into a blog or Web site, it features lots of information about a restaurant -- info that allows you to jump to it without even visiting Foodist Colony. Check out an example widget on YaoKui's blog on the left menu.

The only thing I'd suggest now is possibly a name change. Foodist Colony just doesn't have the flow -- it's a bit long and difficult to say and type. But the app is solid and I am looking forward to seeing the crowd reaction when they present at the NY meetup circuit.