Week 4 of the FoodieLink beta saw some great additions to our community membership, with some really interesting people getting ready to add some great blog entries for everyone to enjoy. I can’t emphasize how important it is to us that we build this community with people who truly care about eating healthy and supporting local and seasonal cooking.

Check out AmyCotler (author of “The Locavore Way”), WarrenBobrow1 (Foodwriter extradinaire, #30 contributor to the Saveur 100 in 2009), Jared (of CleanPlatesNYC fame), and many others! There may be even more that we don’t know about (in terms of specifically who they are); these are the ones who have identified themselves to us.

On a side note – registered members, please fill out your “about me” information in your profile! To do this, sign in to the site, click on “Profile”, the click on the “Edit Profile” link in the “Info” box on the left side of the screen.

In our very first article on FoodieLink, we mentioned the inspiration we got from watching “Food Inc”, a great documentary which presents viewers with some very thought-provoking facts and viewpoints about the mass production of our food supply. As Roger Ebert said in his review, “I figured it wasn't important for me to go into detail about the photography and the editing in my review. I just wanted to scare the bejesus out of you, which is what "Food, Inc." did to me." Definitely some pretty heady stuff!

But if there is one thing that we have learned in our collective experience in social media, and in life in general, it’s that “heady stuff” is not always the best way to get people interested and engaged. Even for those of us who are “socially responsible”, it is often hard to sustain momentum and energy behind an effort or cause when the focus is so heavily weighted against us. So when we saw the below video last year, it also provided us with a huge dose of inspiration:

Make it fun. It’s such a simple concept! And this is one of the foundation principles on which we have built FoodieLink. While there are so many food-related publications that are providing valuable (or sometimes not so valuable!) information, research, and analysis about the food we are eating, we believe that having a community where people can share their food experiences is equally important. FoodieLink is built to be a place where people can share their thoughts, recipes, photos,
articles that they have read…even what they are eating right at this moment!...with other people. Sharing is, in our opinion, what makes food the most fun.

The above video was produced by Volkswagon as part of their “the Fun Theory” initiative. There are a couple more that you can see here:

And definitely check out The Fun Theory site, which has more videos and more fun stuff that they are sharing with the world.

With regards to how the beta has been progressing, we had surprisingly few hiccups this week despite a clear increase in traffic/usage. A good sign! Our development team has been focusing nearly all of its efforts on a new application which we hope to introduce in the next day or so. As a result, not a whole lot was updated or modified with the existing functions. But definitely stay tuned for a new major application to be added this week!

As always, if you have questions or problems with the site, you can send us email, or find Phil on the site and send him a message!

(note that you need to be signed up and logged on to FoodieLink to view any of the profiles listed in this article…or any FoodieLink member profile, for that matter!)

Sincerely,

The FoodieLink Team