First of all, we've partnered with the awesome Thrillist to create a series of guides to point you to their recommendations. In celebration, Thrillist is giving away a $500 Whole Foods Shopping Spree to one lucky spotter. Follow the Thrillist guides and enter here for a chance to win.

Now, you may recall that we asked our users to help us identify the first group of Super Spotters. Super Spotters are those within our community who have made significant contributions to make Foodspotting such a great resource. Today, I'm very happy to introduce to you our first 100 Super Spotters!

It took us some time to sift through all the votes and run our Super Spotter Super Algorithm, which looked at a bunch of things including points and activity level within the community. After much analysis we've finally got it down to our initial group of 100 Super Spotters. Yes, it's a tiny group for now, but we're hoping this is a good start to help us pilot the program. Drumroll please...

And here they are :)

This is just our first class of 100 Super Spotters, and we plan to open nominations in several months. In the meantime, keep spotting to earn more points on Foodspotting. Share foods that you recommend and take part in the great dialogue that happens across the site. Remember: The more others want and nom your sightings, the more points you receive. Happy Foodspotting!

*sung to the tune of Vanilla Ice, of course

If you follow us on Twitter and Facebook, you may have seen that I recently vacationed in Iceland - a week in Reykjavik, to be exact, and absolutely adored it. The weather was a pain-inducing cold, but the landscapes and skyscapes I witnessed were more than worth it.

I took Spot with me, and we ate our way through town - including quirky foods like reindeer burger (juicy, gamey and very tasty) and smoked puffin (interesting flavor, really really dark red in colour and consistency was like the raw part of seared duck, unfortunately the restaurant was too dark to get a good pic).

And no, I didn't get to eat the fermented shark, but DID get to try an Icelandic hot dog - underneath a layer of sweet mustard and mayo-y goodness sits a pile of delicious crispy fried onion pieces. Yep, you can always count on me to go halfway across the world and still find a hot dog to eat - in my defense, it's recommended as one of the city's must-eats by everyone Icelandic :)

Aside from some interesting ingredients (like whale and those mentioned above), cuisine in Bjork's homeland was surprisingly similar to food you'd find in America - a good example is a "truck" breakfast, served at two of the cafes I visited.

Seafood was super duper fresh, as to be expected on a coastal city like Reykjavik, and maybe even more so because the Icelandic currency boasts fish on it :) In fact, I ate some of the tastiest lox I've ever had.

Spotted by Rodney

Alexa, our co-founder and CEO, often Tumbles about stuff that look like other stuff and this is one of our favourite stuffs that look like other stuffs to have graced the Foodspotting pages. Plus, it's Halloween week, which gives us an excuse to write about food that has dressed up like something else ;)

Let's take a look at what's inside, shall we? For the bun, Burger Bar halved a warm donut (mmm... donut...!), inserted chocolate ganache in place of a beef patty, added passion fruit coulis for ketchup, and a tangy jello-like layer for cheese! Of course, what burger is complete without some veggies? For tomatoes, they substituted strawberry, lettuce magically became mint, and kiwi cleverly replaces pickles. And for a delicious price of $3.95, it might become the burger I choose over just your everyday beef burger.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to guess that we love food. But, we don't just want to eat it, we want to learn about it too. The heritage of the Foodspotting team is pretty global so we always want to learn more about, not just good foods, but interesting foods around the world. Because of this, we're re-launching our blog, which captures our founder Alexa's initial goal of creating a Field Guide for Food Enthusiasts.

From here on out, check back regularly to learn more about food and Foodspotting. We'll find dishes that we're lucky enough to try, and others that we'll simply have to admire from afar. We will also showcase Foodspotters, spotted items and spottertunities, as well as share how-to videos to demonstrate the most efficient or customary ways to eat some of the more trickier culinary treasures. Have something you want us to look into for you? Drop us a line and let us know - requests are most definitely welcome!

You'll be seeing plenty more of the team here, so our very own Amy Cao put together an intro video to the Foodspotting Family with our favorite foods to kick things off!

How can today get any more perfect…? We’re triple featured on Apple’s iPhone App Store, and the whole team is beaming with excitement and pride. Not only are we called out as an App of the Week, we’re also listed in the Off the Grid and Apps for Foodies featured apps lists.

All we can say is wow.

We’re in awe!

Very happily,
Fiona

Good coq au vin takes a while to cook, and our lovely site sometimes takes a while to load, like today when we were revealed as iPhone’s Featured App of the Week! While we’re over the moon, the sudden spike in traffic slowed our server down a bit. Here are some things to consider doing until Foodspotting returns online:

• Actually eat your food :)

• Go for a walk or jog in place to earn more calories for the next meal to be spotted

• Give some attention to the other photos in your life. (Remember that trip to Paris?)

• Talk to the person you’re with, you know, instead of looking at your phone. (But we’re all guilty of that here. See the above pic of us on a recent outing in NYC.)

Can you think of others? Share them with us.

And a huge thanks for your patience as we work on it!

It’s been a record month for us here at Foodspotting - almost 140,000 foods have been spotted and we had more than 200,000 visits last month. That’s HUGE!

It’s all thanks to you and the great foods you’ve been sharing, so it’s about time we started recognizing our users for making Foodspotting what it is.

Starting today, we’re asking for your help to nominate those within the community who should be inducted into our first class of Super Spotters, a rewards program for our top users.

To nominate a Foodspotting Super Spotter, just go to the user’s profile page and click on the nominate button. There are no restrictions to your nominations - you can vote for as many people as you like, even yourself! We simply ask that you provide a brief, thoughtful reason why you think you and/or others deserve the vote. :) Stay tuned for more fun and exciting perks for the program.

The nomination window closes a week from now at midnight Pacific Time, Friday, October 8, 2010. Thanks in advance for your help and for all the foods you’ve shared with us!

Don’t forget to check out the great guides we have, and contests like the Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival cookbook rare ingredients food hunt.

Happily,
Fiona & Team Foodspotting

(Photo by LUNCH on Foodspotting.)

Hi everyone,

Fiona here, writing my very first newsletter. I am excited to announce two amazing guides launching today on Foodspotting: One features hundreds of places in the US that you can get FREE DESSERTS, TODAY ONLY and the other is a fun way to win an awesome cookbook!

Get free desserts today, 9/15, to celebrate Just Desserts Day! Follow this guide to find desserts near you. Bravo’s Top Chef Just Desserts premieres today at 11pm/10c. You can celebrate by enjoying sweet treats today from over 200 participating bakeries and retailers nationwide. Be sure to spot what you try!

Win the Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival Cookbook by completing their photo contest. All you have to do is follow their guide here and be one of the first five to submit photos from the cookbook categories, and this mouth-watering cookbook AND 2 tickets to the Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival Grand Tasting will be yours!

New at Foodspotting HQ

Our Android app is in the works and on its way. We know all our Android users have been anxiously waiting its arrival - appreciate your patience as we build a rocking app for you as quick as we can.

In case you haven’t yet seen, we recently moved into our headquarters in San Francisco’s SoMa district - take a look at our brief tour video to see where we now live.

This fun video couldn’t have happened if it weren’t for our lovely resident food blogger and smiles generator, Amy Cao of Amy Blogs Chow and creator of Stupidly Simple Snacks. Amy and I will be combining our powers to bring you more food-related fun in the near future.

As always, keep spotting great foods around you, and do get in touch if you have feedback to share.

Thanks so much!

Fiona & Team Foodspotting
http://www.foodspotting.com

(Source: mim.io)