While searching through the App Store, I came upon the featured App of the Week which is called Foodspotting. What caught my eye about it was the social aspect of the app itself and how it pertains to food. You see, I am an avid user of Foursquare but sometimes, there are limitations to what Foursquare can do. For instance, you can’t upload images to Foursquare, you can only check-in a location. Most of the time, I use Foursquare to check into restaurants but I’d like to show people what I’m eating. Reading through the description of Foodspotting, it seemed to fill in that gap. Foodspotting is a way for people to visually show what you are eating as well as rate and recommend it to others. Think Yelp, but instead of just writing about it, you can show people exactly what you mean. I decided to give the app a chance use it for a day to see if I would actually need an app like this.
First off, the Foodspotting app is very nice and professional looking. It is very easy to use with the main “spot†button right in the middle of the toolbar. The “spot†button is where you do all your image uploading and checking in. All you do is either take a photo of your food from the app or load a photo from your image library. From there you tell the app what the name of the dish is and where you are eating it at. If you are eating it, you can “nom†it. The more people who “nom†it, the more popular that dish is. You can even leave comments about each dish you upload. What’s also nice about the app is that if you are uploading an image of a dish that someone else has uploaded, it gets added to the sightings gallery for that dish so you can see multiple images of the same dish. This is great because often times, you may order the same dish as another person but sometimes it comes out completely different. This is great for comparison. Seems that Foodspotting does keep a pretty vast database of foods and restaurants.
Like I said in the introduction, Foodspotting is a social networked app. What I like about it is that it can link to pretty much all of the current popular social networks. You can have it link to your Foursquare, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. Each time you check into Foodspotting, it also posts to those other networks. You do need to watch out however with this as I found myself posting multiple times over and over again because of how I have some of these social networks set up, mainly Foursquare. Example, Foodspotting would post to my Twitter account and Foursquare account, but my Foursquare is also linked to my Twitter so I would end up double posting to Twitter. Not good. I decided to have Foodspotting not post to Foursquare anymore and instead just manually post into Foursquare 1 time through the actual Foursquare app. That’s just me though. You may want to set yours up differently.
The Foodspotting app is directly linked to the Foodspotting website. It’s very similar to Foursquare where you can check into locations based on your GPS location but you can also upload images of the food you are eating. This all shows up on their website. Foodspotting also has awards you can get so just like Foursquare, they make Foodspotting into a sort of game with points, leaderboards, and badges.
I was able to find a few friends who are also using the app so that’s a plus. It’s always kind of discouraging trying a new social app out but finding out that none of your friends are using it. Also, this app currently is for iOS devices only but an Android app does seem to be in the works.
Final Thoughts
Foodspotting is a great app. There is so much food to discover out there and Foodspotting makes it easy to find new foods and see new foods. With this app, I’ve already discovered a few new restaurants to try out thanks to how appetizing the photos of the food looked. What’s great is that these are all uploaded by actual people who have eaten these foods.
There is another app out there called Fiddme that does almost the same thing that Foodspotting does. We’ll be reviewing that app later this week as well.
You can download Foodspotting right now in the App Store for free.
Rating: 4/5
Description
Foodspotting is a visual guide to good food and where to find it. It helps you decide what to eat, not just where, by showing you pictures of foods at nearby restaurants. You can help others find good food by taking photos of foods you love and sharing where to find them.
If you’re trying to decide what to eat, you can…
• See the nearest, latest and best foods around you
• Find a particular food that you’re craving
• Look up a restaurant and see what’s good there
• Access guides from experts like the Travel Channel’s No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain and see what’s good near youIf you want to share recommendations, you can…
• Share photos of foods you love & tell others where to find them
• Complete guides & scavenger hunts
• Earn expert badges and reputation points for quality contributions
