Foodist Colony Archive

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.

NY-based Foodist Colony is a service that lets you setup your own restaurant guide and/or interact with the community who have setup their own. Think of it as a personal Yelp that you can customize to show off the restaurants you like around the city. The site has been around for two years and currently serves only the NYC metro area.

When you signup for an account on Foodist, you are presented with three choices: create a premade site with one of their starter kits, build your own restaurant guide or just enter the site and add your selections later on. Here is the demo guide I setup — note that I just picked some pizzerias, these are not my favorites :).

Here’s an example restaurant page which might actually be better than Yelp. I like the "I’ve been there" option which lets you keep track of where you have eaten.

There are widgets, an iPhone/Touch version, mini-social network and lots of cross-promotion from other members. I’d like to see Facebook and Twitter integration. And what about a tie into Savory Cities to include video overviews? And of course where is the news/activity feed? Lastly, tie in GoMobo (our coverage) for takeout ordering directly.

This is a direct competitor for recently-launched Bricabox (our coverage). Bricabox has more technical options but requires you to enter the content from scratch. With Foodist Colony, the content is already there as a starting point, what a brilliant idea. Both services could learn something from the other.

In my testing over the past couple of days, I am very impressed by how slick the app is. It has enough Ajaxy-goodness but not an amount that’s overwhelming. The responses from the system are quick and the information is well presented. What I don’t see is any advertising or costs to be a member, so I am not sure how they monetize the app. I have a message into the team and will report back.