(See OpenTable Press Release)

When we founded Foodspotting, driven by our love of obscure dishes like okonomiyaki, Ted, Soraya and I set out to bring a dish-centric dining guide into the world and watch it grow. We raised some money, grew our team to ten (plus alum), and built a community that catalogued over three million dishes. Today, towards the same end, we're so happy to have found a great home for Foodspotting where our site, app, and community can continue to thrive while our entire team continues to focus on making your dining experiences awesome.

We’ve already been working closely with the OpenTable team as partners: In addition to making restaurant reservations via Foodspotting, you may have seen Foodspotting photos from select restaurants popping up on OpenTable. But we both realized we could create smarter experiences if we could integrate more deeply by, for example, recommending dishes when you make reservations to enabling restaurants to showcase their best dishes. We look forward to augmenting your dining experiences with Foodspotting’s recommendations to forge the shortest path between you and great food!

Rest assured that Foodspotting will continue to live on as a standalone product, as OpenTable deeply values the Foodspotting community and your contributions. You’ll still be able to spot food anywhere in the world, from street food stalls to seven course meals. But you can also look forward to smarter recommendations, better restaurant information and a more visual, social and design-driven dining experience as we bring the best of Foodspotting to OpenTable.

We hope you’ll celebrate with us as we reimagine dining with OpenTable. We’d love to hear what you’d like to see us create together, and look forward to making it happen!

Have you heard of Okonomiyaki, Takoyaki or Kushikatsu? I grew up in Pittsburgh, where I was a Pierogi and Primanti Brothers Expert, and while my adventurous parents did their best to expand my horizons by feeding me everything from Egg Foo Young to Liver & Onions, there were so many dishes I simply couldn't find in Pittsburgh or even the US at all. So, as you may have heard by now, I started Foodspotting when a trip to Osaka, Japan opened my eyes to how many dishes I'd never heard of before.

Since then, I've discovered so many dishes using our redesigned apps -- from Dosas to Doubles -- but discovering dishes using our website has never been quite as easy. So we set out to change that this summer. Today, we're excited to announce our first web redesign since August 2010, which not only unifies the site and apps, but enables you to slice and dice over 2.5M dishes in all kinds of ways.

Be sure to try...

• Browsing entire walls of all things Pumpkin Pie, Red Velvet, or Bananas Foster.
• Staying on top of mashups like Ramen Macarons from Adriano Zumbo and Pulled Pork Doughnuts from Gourdough's.
• Exploring regional cuisine, from Istanbul, Turkey and Tbilisi, Gerogia to Taipei, Taiwan and Tasmania, Australia.
• Seeing how many regional specialties you can spot at McDonalds around the world.
• And, of course, setting your location so you can find great dishes nearby!

Share your discoveries!

These are just a few of the great finds our team has been exchanging all summer, and we can't wait to see what you discover! We'll feature your best finds as #dishoftheday.

1. Set your location or pan & zoom the map to adjust it.
2. Search for whatever you're craving by dish or by restaurant.
3. Share your favorite finds on Twitter or Facebook, right from the header, using the hashtag #dishoftheday on Twitter or mentioning @Foodspotting on facebook!

But what happened to ___?

In addition to reimagining the foodseeking experience, we've redesigned every other page of the site to make your photos shine and draw attention to what matters most: It’s all about the food. This means some features have been simplified or shuffled around, which we realize may take some getting used to. But in the end, we hope you'll enjoy less clutter and MORE FOOD as much as we do! (Hint: Your Dashboard Feed, Guides and People all can be found under “Share”)

Still can't find something? Have questions or thoughts? We're here to answer and listen!
Visit our Redesign FAQ & Feedback Forum »

When we launched our Facebook Timeline app earlier this year, we loved that we could finally see all of the interesting things our friends were wanting, trying and loving on Foodspotting. In fact, we were finding so many great dishes via Facebook that we began to crave this capability in Foodspotting.

So in the spirit of helping people discover even more great dishes, as well as making Foodspotting more interesting for those of you who don't photograph food or don't have friends who do, we're excited to introduce The New Activity Feed for iPhone and Android (and coming soon to web and mobile web -- let us know if you want to beta test!).

The dishes people Want, Try and Love appear as lightweight entries that you can act on too:

And the dishes people Spot appear as full entries, complete with comments and compliments:

We realize that for our top users, this may feel like a dramatic change (and we're exploring ways to help super users manage any information overload). But we hope that for both foodspotters and foodseekers alike, The New Activity Feed will open up a whole new world of great dishes to discover.

P.S. Not following anyone interesting yet? May we suggest some of our friends, like Chow, BlackBoard Eats, and musician Mayer Hawthorne?

We want Foodspotting to become the shortest path between you and good food.

Foodspotting's superpower is making people hungry: If you're not launching Foodspotting because you're hungry, you will be soon after! Almost every single day, we see tweets like these...

With our New Place Page in Foodspotting 3.5, we introduced some new ways to satisfy those cravings and close the hunger-satisfaction loop: You could learn more via Yelp, check out the menu via SinglePlatform and make reservations using OpenTable.

Today, we're taking one more step toward closing that loop: Online Ordering Integration via GrubHub

When you're browsing Foodspotting, have you ever wished for a "Buy it now!" button? Well, our partnership with GrubHub is the first step in that direction. When you see some amazing dish on Foodspotting, you can tap through to the Place page and see if it's available for pick up or delivery on GrubHub. Tapping "Order Now via GrubHub" will take you to GrubHub's new mobile-friendly website where you can easily complete your order, no login required.

This is just the beginning - we're working on ways to make it easier to find food you can order in or pick up, dish-specific ordering and more. But with over 15,000 restaurants in cities large and small across the US, we hope you'll find plenty of great dishes you can order right from your phone!

As an added bonus, GrubHub will send a $10 credit to the first 25 people who place orders through Foodspotting, towards their NEXT order, just to celebrate this partnership. Go get 'em!

And if you need some inspiration, here are a few of our favorite orderable dishes in our hometown, San Francisco, plus a few of GrubHub's favorites in New York.

Our team loves swapping stories of how Foodspotting has drawn us into restaurants we might never have thought to try otherwise: Pie Shakes led me to Chile Pies and Ice Cream. Red Velvet Fried Chicken led Chris to American Cupcake. But whenever some amazing dish piqued our interest, we found ourselves looking for a few more answers: What else is good here? What do friends recommend? How much does it cost?

So with these questions in mind, we reimagined the place page in Foodspotting. The New Place Page makes it easier than ever to satisfy those Foodspotting-induced cravings by putting recommendations, ratings and reservations at your fingertips. When you look up a restaurant on Foodspotting (simply tap a restaurant name in Explore or look it up using the searchable Places tab), whenever possible, we'll show you:

PERSONAL RECOMMENDATIONS Based on your tastes, for example, "Try the Truffled Deviled Eggs because you're a Deviled Egg Expert!"

FRIENDS' RECOMMENDATIONS See what friends and experts like Anthony Bourdain love wherever you go.

REVIEWS VIA YELP Find out more by looking up restaurant level ratings, reviews and details like price and ambiance.

MENUS VIA SINGLEPLATFORM See full menus and prices for nearly 400,000 restaurants.

RESERVATIONS VIA OPENTABLE Book a date with those deviled eggs without leaving Foodspotting.

Beyond this handy dashboard-like Place Page and being 10x more beautiful throughout, there's even more to love in Foodspotting 3.5. Since we launched our redesign in February, we've introduced:

THE NEW PROFILE If you are what you eat, the new Foodspotting profile paints a better picture than ever. Whether you're a self proclaimed dumplings or milkshake expert, friends can now see the titles you've earned and find out what you recommend in each category.

VISUAL MAPS We've made exploring dishes via the map more visual and easier to use.

LOCATION PICKER You could always change your location by moving the map, now you can explore great dishes anywhere in the world, from Uzbekistan to Easter Island.

JAPANESE LANGUAGE Japan is where Foodspotting began, and we're celebrating our roots by introducing Foodspotting in Japanese!

We want Foodspotting to become the picture menu for every restaurant, everywhere in the world. This next iteration of Foodspotting brings us one step closer to that goal, but we couldn't have gotten this far without almost 3 million foodspotters like you! Thanks for being part of our story and spotting over 1.75 million dishes. Keep wanting, loving and cataloguing your favorite dishes wherever you go!

Download & rate the app on iTunes or Google Play!

Download the new iPhone & Android apps  |  Download High Res Screenshot

When we launched Foodspotting in January 2010, Ted and I looked forward to the day it could be a picture menu for every restaurant. One million sightings and two million downloads later, we've learned a lot about what a smart, personal, social menu could look like. We took everything we learned and, today, after many late nights for Team Foodspotting, we're proud to unveil Foodspotting 3 for iPhone and Android, as well as the debut of our Blackberry app soon this week! (Our Windows Phone app was built with these ideas in mind from the start.)

Beyond giving the app a complete visual makeover, we're introducing a Pandora-like interface for discovering and rating dishes around you. You can now:

• Bookmark dishes you want to try ("Want it")
• Hide dishes you don’t want ("Hide it")
• Recommend dishes you love with one tap ("Loved it" — the new Nom)
• Keep tabs on dishes you've tried but didn't necessarily love ("Tried it")
• Find out what friends recommend wherever you go with the Filter Wheel & Activity Feed
• See partners’ badge of approval on dishes they recommend, including our newest partners: Travel + Leisure, visitPA and champion eater Takeru Kobayashi.

WHAT OUR TEAM LOVES ABOUT THE NEW DESIGN

1. It's like Pandora for food: We've been happily tailoring Foodspotting to our tastes by bookmarking dishes we Want and Hiding dishes we don't want. Our resident vegetarians have been hiding coworkers' offal sightings, and I've been wanting every truffle dish in sight.
2. It's like a personalized picture menu: Our team has been sharing dish recommendations without saying a word by simply "Loving" things on Foodspotting. Now when I walk into a restaurant, I can see what my coworkers and friends loved there, whether it was yesterday or years ago. I can also see what I already tried so I never have to order the same Bubble Tea twice, unless I want to, of course!
3. It's like food radar: We've been navigating foods near and far using the new filter wheel and map, and we've enjoyed stumbling upon dishes we Wanted weeks ago, dishes we Spotted years ago and new dishes that have popped up in our neighborhood in the past few days, like this Truffle Mushroom Soup @ Marlowe.

THE NEW FOODSPOTTING LOGO

You might notice another big change for Foodspotting: Our new logo! (The one on the right.) Contrary to what our old logo implied, Foodspotting is not just for people who take pictures of their food. In fact, over 90% of our otherwise active users have never taken a food photo. To better capture what Foodspotting means for a broader audience—discovering amazing dishes wherever you go—we decided it was time to move away from using “I Photograph Food” as our primary identity. After much thought and many explorations, we finally fell in love with this simple mark that incorporates everything we want to communicate:

• It's an eye... for seeing great things around you.
• It's a dish... because dishes make us different!
• It's a cookie with a bite taken out... yum.
• It's a lens... for revealing delicious foods you wouldn't have known about otherwise.
• We've also heard people say it's a smiling mouth, a distant cousin of Pac Man and a cat's head tilted to one side… all perfectly acceptable interpretations to me!

For our beloved food photo takers who power Foodspotting, "I Photograph Food" is not going away! We've refreshed our line of t-shirts and schwag so you can still wear it proudly.

CELEBRATE WITH US!

We’ve been celebrating Foodspotting’s second birthday all January and are excited about how far the app has come. We hope you'll celebrate with us by downloading the new app and finding something amazing to eat near you!

Video directed by Chris Lenox Smith with original music by Huma-Huma

What could be better than Chocolate Covered Key Lime Pie on a Stick? Sharing great finds like these with your friends! We believe that food is meant to be shared, and our new app for Facebook Timeline makes it easier than ever to spread the word about great dishes.

You've always been able to share dishes you spot on Facebook. Now, when you Want, Try or Love (Nom) a dish on Foodspotting, these actions will appear on Facebook too.

ADD FOODSPOTTING TO TIMELINE

By connecting or reconnecting Facebook to Foodspotting, you can include Foodspotting activity on your Facebook Timeline:

CONTAIN YOURSELF

You can control who sees this activity, which is neatly contained in this little box and won't take over your Timeline:

SHOW OFF YOUR EXPERTISE

Your friends can always visit your Foodspotting app page to see all of your food finds in this nifty Timeline format, including the dishes you've become an expert in:

GET STARTED

1. Starting today, when you connect Facebook to Foodspotting or log in using Facebook, you'll be prompted to include Foodspotting activity on your Facebook Timeline. Simply sign out and sign back in using Facebook to see it.

2. You can control who sees this activity from the start (choose "Just Me" if you want to keep your food finds to yourself). You can always change your preferences or turn off the activity from your Foodspotting Settings page or Facebook's Application Settings page. You can also still post individual photos by choosing "Share on Facebook," which shares them the traditional, more prominent way.

3. Now, whenever you Want, Try or Love something on Foodspotting, these actions will appear in the Foodspotting box on your Facebook Timeline. You can click the box title to view your full Foodspotting Timeline page and revisit tasty food memories.

Sharing food finds is as easy as clicking the "Like" button but much more expressive! We've been playing around with the Timeline app as a team for several weeks and are really enjoying how it's helped us discover new and interesting dishes from each other. We'd love to hear your feedback, please share them directly with us by emailing team[at]foodspotting.com.

Mark Zuckerberg presenting new features on Facebook at f8

We're one of the first companies to integrate with the new Facebook features announced at f8, Facebook's developer conference! Soon you'll be able to add Foodspotting to your Facebook Timeline and show off the foods you want, try and love.

The foods we want, try and love tell stories about who we are and what we identify with. I'm a dumplings expert because I've tried every xiao long bao in the city. I'm adventurous because I love beef heart and chicken sashimi. I'm from the Midwest, and I'm not ashamed to say I want a Frosty now and then.

Thanks to the new features that Facebook announced today at f8, you'll soon be able to tell these stories on Facebook by using Foodspotting. Instead of just liking things on Facebook, you’ll soon be able to Want, Try, and Love dishes on Foodspotting - and you’ll be able to add these activities directly to your Facebook Timeline. By exploring your Facebook Timeline, your friends can now discover great dishes through you, and vice versa.

There's no better way to learn about new foods and where to find them than through your friends, and this new Facebook integration makes it easier than ever! Let us know what you think.

Updated January 2012 - You can now add Foodspotting to your Facebook Timeline! Learn more and find out how in our January blog post.

A peek at how the new Timeline will look on Facebook.