www.foodbuzz.com & www.epicurious.com
This website is for anyone who wants to search for recipes, organize them, rate the restaurants in their areas, and also connect with other foodies. Upon entering the website, there are huge pictures of feature plates that are changing every few seconds. On the bottom of the page, which is very visible, are all the options that the user has. This website has quite an appeal because the pictures that are shown seem “real.” They are not fancy which makes it more user friendly. The user can search for different recipes based on their interest and then file each recipe that seems to work well for them. Each user can post their own recipes and as each user views the recipe, the website captures each view to show the recipe’s popularity. Users can also rate restaurants in their area. Based on the user ratings, foodbuzz gives each restaurant an average rating along with general information about each one, including website, street address, and how expensive it is. Epicurious.com is another social networking website that links foodies as well. Their tagline is “…for those who love to eat.” Epicurious has a fancier feel to it. Epicurious has a recipe of the day as well as Food News that is posted. A post that caught my eye was one about a book that recently came out called 1001 Foods You Must Taste Before You Die. The post also included the author's three top foods which I thought was pretty interesting. Epicurious also has ratings for each recipe where users can state what worked well or what they would add or delete to make recipes better. I noticed that epicurious.com also had a place where users can enter their mobile numbers and get daily recipe ideas.

I LOVE MIAMI SPICE

www.ilovemiamispice.com

The reason why I chose this website is because it happened to be a surprise for many foodies and restaurant-goers. Every summer, some of the most fabulous restaurants in Miami offer a Miami Spice menu that is $36 for a 3-course dinner or $26 for a 3-course lunch. To stimulate the economy, the Winter Miami Spice menu is being offered at a limited amount of restaurants from January 12th to February 12th so people are flocking to this website for after-holiday steals!
This website was not posted all over the place but it was more of a word-of-mouth operative that local foodies had the pleasure of announcing to each other. I happened to get an e-mail on January 7th from Thrillist.com - http://www.thrillist.com/winter/miami-spice-winter-edition with a link to the website.
Upon entering the website, there is a welcome message with a baby blue background and snowflakes representing the winter element of Miami Spice. There is also a video that can be clicked on to get a visual representation of the restaurants, some of the feature plates, and even the head chef of Azul at the Mandarin Hotel speaking about his menu. The viewer can click on the "participating restaurants" button and is taken to a list of restaurant hyperlinks that are divided by South Beach/Miami Beach, Mainland-North, Mainland-South, and North Beaches. This makes it easier for the viewer to select a restaurant based on their geographical area. Once a restaurant is clicked on, a new window is opened with the restaurant's logo, a picture of the restaurant or feature chef, and a schedule of when the restaurant is offering the Miami Spice menu. In addition, there are hyperlinks that take you to the actual Miami Spice menu so that the viewer can see if they are interested. There is also an option to print the page, another hyperlink that will take the person to the restaurant's website, and a map to show exactly where the restaurant is.
The only criticism that I have about the website is the use of opentable.com. Opentable.com is a website that offers the service of making an on-line reservation without having to call the restaurant. It is at the very bottom of the page on the Miami Spice Website on the participating restaurants page. It should at the very top of the page because most people will not see it. It should also be on the page where the viewer can see the actaul menu because if the person likes the menu, then they can make the reservation right then and there.

For mobile marketing, there are many ways of measuring the efficacy of a particular program. First, the actual marketing vehicle needs to be at a place where the target audience will be captured. This will increase the chances of number of specific users exposed. The marketing vehicle needs to be at the destination at a specific time if they are trying to get a specific kind of person. For example, if the mobile marketing program came to our school and they wanted to target students who may have gone straight to college after high school who probably don't work, it may be best for the vehicle to run the program morning and afternoon versus evening. The reason being is that many students who have full time jobs attend school at night.
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