FriendsEat Archive

FriendsEat is a NY-based social network which offers a variety of options for a foodie. The site, which has been live for just over eight months offers recipes, restaurant reviews, ability to make reservations at selected locations and a forum for food chat. Members can also create a blog and upload videos as well.

The site has a lot of depth in terms of content – though I can’t seem to figure out where they are sourcing the content from. It looks like a majority of the recipes were pulled from other sources but while there is some text attribution, I don’t see any links back to the original content creator.

FriendsEat requires you to create a registration for some of the functions including printing of a recipe – I’d suggest that this is a bad move for the company – and would be more open to a direct print with a small advertisement attached as a better alternative.

The two tabs they have on the header (Restaurants/Recipes) I find a bit confusing. When clicking the tabs, I expected something to happen but in reality the tabs are just a shift of the search box below the tabs. I’d suggest they make the color swap more distinguishable for users to realize the change that was made. I’d also suggest they hire an editor to proofread the English across the site.

By allowing user submissions of food-related videos, this could become the most popular part of FriendsEat. The restaurant reviews section has a large number of locations and feels like Yelp in terms of the content provided which includes ratings, location map, reviews, and general information. You can also have the info sent to your mobile directly.

Monetization comes from advertising and an Amazon aStore for food-related items and books.

I spoke with founder Antonio Evans about the service and he also shared his advice for people looking to create a successful Web presence: Create a team that love the product, Release early, Test, Listen to your users, and Release frequently.

Where do you go for your recipes and restaurant reviews? I find myself using AllRecipes and Yelp while also testing out the smaller, newer sites as well.