Bye bye, Bizzy

​Barely a month ago some bloggers were proposing that Foodspotting and Bizzy were in a battle for food-based social-mobile-local supremacy. Now the two start ups have taken dramatically different paths: Bizzy is shutting down, while Foodspotting, which we covered in depth here, has just passed the one million download mark.

According to founder Gadi Shamia, "ultimately Bizzy did not attract the number of users it needed to sustain itself in the long run."  In the hierarchy of needs of a consumer-mobile start-up, cash is oxygen and users are water. It's hard to live very long without both.

The firm promises to provide export functionality for its users so people won't lose the content and history they've created over time, which we applaud them for. Taking care of your customers, even at the end, is a sign of great maturity and concern for the value others tried to help create.
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​We asked you for your nominations, and boy, did you guys deliver. After sorting through hundreds of submissions, we've assembled a huge list of all the nominations for the SF Weekly Web Awards 2011. (Sidebar: Whoever nominated Frank Chu for every category, it was very funny. The first time.)

Now we need your votes to help us narrow down the finalists.

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​Earlier this week our restaurant critic Jonathan Kauffman criticized the website of one of his favorite restaurants, the Alembic.

I thought I'd have a look at the site. Unfortunately, I don't have the patience; the site took so long to load that I gave up.

Whoever owns the restaurant should take a lesson from that: It doesn't matter how beautiful your website is if it's so poorly designed that it doesn't load immediately. Since we ranked the Alembic highly on our list of the Top Ten S.F. Restaurants Not on OpenTable, we assume your site is costing you money, and not just whatever you paid to the designer.

So we thought we'd help out by running a quick list of what a good restaurant website really needs.

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​Most startups have an "elevator pitch," a short one-liner or phrase that explains what they do. I can think of several for Foodspotting: Yelp 2.0, Instagram for meals, FourSquare for food, or a foodie social network.

Foodspotting is a free smartphone app that lets you take a picture of your food, post it, and let the world see what you liked and where. If you're more a lurker than a contributor (and most people are), you benefit from those of us who chronicle our culinary journeys or everyday meals to find out what's good to eat nearby. If you didn't know you were near Tartine, or how good its morning buns are, it's likely the app would show you. Images of food near you are displayed by what's nearest, latest, or best, your choice.

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​We're very excited to announce nominations for the 2011 SF Weekly Web Awards are now open.

We're asking you -- the very smart, very savvy, and very awesome readers of SF Weekly -- to help us find the best San Francisco has to offer online. Whether that's the Twitter feed you can't stop checking, the local podcast that makes your Muni commute bearable, the fashion blogger who keeps you up to date, or the food blogger who keeps you hungry, we want to hear about 'em. Head over to our online poll to nominate your favorites

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Our brand-new Best Of... issue isn't just on newsstands. It's in the App Store.

Our free iPhone app takes the Best Of... issue and crams it into your pants (or purse). You can find out which Best Of... spot is closest to you, check in via Facebook to let your friends know where you're at, and vote on locations for our Readers' Poll ― all from your phone.

Use it to check out and check in to five of our Best Of... winning locations around town, and we'll even hook you up with a prize package worth more than $350.

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​Blue Crow Media, aka Derek Lamberton, lives in London. When he worked for Current TV, he used to travel frequently to San Francisco. He spent so much time in both cities searching out new cafes and independent roasters that when he became unemployed, he decided to turn his info spreadsheets into a series of iPhone apps. Right before Christmas, Blue Crow Media launched "San Francisco's Best Coffee," a 99-cent app that provides a curated directory to small, independent coffee shops and local roasters.

Lamberton and a San Francisco associate have identified more than 50 cafes they think qualify for the app. "If they're serving independently roasted coffee and they use non-automatic machinery [to brew it]," he says, "that's the simple criteria. And then there's how much the baristas care about what they're doing." The two started by asking roasters like De La Paz, Four Barrel, and Barefoot which cafes they supplied, and then visited all of them to write up short descriptions, including the name of the coffee roaster that supplies them and the espresso machine they use.

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​Commenting on SFoodie posts is about to get less soulless ― less like typing into a vacuum, anyway. Starting today, all of SF Weekly's blogs are switching to the Disqus system (we think you put the emphasis on the second syllable, like dis-CUSS). You'll be able to post an avatar, and have an overall easier time interacting with SFoodie bloggers and fellow readers.

SF Weekly staffer Joe Eskenazi has the full story over at our Snitch news blog, including info about the interactivity possibilities of Disqus. Questions? I'm still learning the system myself, but don't hesitate to reach out. We can, um, learn together.

PlayFirst via SFGate

The chocolate-making game's been averaging 800,000 plays a month.

​Want to make your own Charles Chocolates creations? There's a video game called Chocolatier: Sweet Society for that. Charles Chocolates has teamed up with social networking game company PlayFirst for this venture, where players make their own chocolates in virtual factories set in San Francisco. In a reality-virtual twist, players can order and send an actual box of Charles Chocolates confections to friends (or themselves) after unlocking the recipes in those virtual factories ― truffles and pralines are two of the five recipes available.

Charles owner Chuck Siegel tells SFoodie it took three months to get the deal with PlayFirst in place. Since it launched it's been "remarkably popular" ― players of Chocolatier are averaging 800,000 per month, according to Siegel. Online gaming is suddenly looking sweeter.

Google

Google Hotpot ratings.

​We wish we had a new Mongolian or Chinese hotpot place to tell you about today. Unfortunately we just have Google Hotpot. Are Yelp and Foursquare not sufficiently filling up your Smartphone, time, and tummy? Well, here is yet another way to distract yourself, give you more food for thought, and make you an authority on your neighborhood grub.

su-lin/Flickr

Not that kind of hotpot.

​Google Hotpot is an addition to Google Places and Google Profiles, where you now have "local recommendations powered by you and your friends" Restaurant recommendations, that is.

App.
If Google owns your phone then it is simple to try out Hotpot on your Droid, you simply download the latest Google Maps App (4.7) and add Rate Places. If you have an iPhone, there's a Places app in the works for you or you can just use the browser.

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