Happy Wednesday! As you may know, our latest iPhone app hit the Apple App Store on Monday. (Get the latest version now.)

This latest iteration of the Foodspotting app makes the spotting process faster, smarter, better! You can probably guess we're over-the-moon about the improved functionality, and really appreciate the feedback you guys have given us to help us get here.

Please take a minute to rate the app in the App Store. Let us know what you think of the new spot flow, and what other improvements you hope to see. We want to bring you the best food recommendation app on your phone ever. That company goal alone deserves five stars, don't you think?

In the midst of all the excitement surrounding our Android lite app release and upcoming BlackBerry app, we have been working hard to improve the experience for our iPhone app users too.

We're thrilled to announce our iPhone app update just hit the Apple App Store today! We've completely redesigned the spot flow to make sharing recommendations much easier. You'll also notice that you can now scroll endlessly without having to wait for the foodspottings to load. Here's how easy it is to spot now:

1. Pick a photo

2. Pick from nearby places or search for one instantly

3. Pick from items at that place or add a new one

4. Add details and choose sharing options

5. Foodspotting complete!

You plan for months, register for permits, team up with a great co-host, rally together Austin's best food trucks, get the word out, and pray for a sun-filled day. Still, even with all that preparation, you don't really know what will happen until it does.

Yesterday, the whole team woke up before anyone else in Austin to set the stage for the Foodspotting SXSW Street Food Fest, presented by BlackBerry aka one of the most anticipated food events at this year's interactive festival. There we met up with our co-hosts, BlackBerry, who brought along tons of goodies, like their soon-to-be released PlayBook, and BlackBerry phones for the winners of our Secret Menu Scavenger Hunt.

Gates opened at 11am and from that moment on, the incoming stream of people didn't stem until the event ended at 4pm. Put it this way – we were hoping for 1,000 attendees. By the end of the day, we counted nearly 4,000 people.

We still have a video and more photos to come, but we just want to say THANK YOU to everyone who stopped by to eat and say hello to us and our partner BlackBerry, who we also cannot thank enough for working with us to produce an unforgettable food fest!

Photo taken from far, far away so you can't see the weight we gained this week.

Restaurant Week has become a welcome tradition in many cities and, going forward, we hope Foodspotting will become a bigger part of them all! For our latest Restaurant Week partnership, we're teaming up with The Valley Table magazine for Hudson Valley Restaurant Week between March 14th–27th. You already know that Restaurant Week deals can be a steal, but now you can dine out and win another delicious meal just by foodspotting your favorite dish!

First things first: Follow our Hudson Valley Restaurant Week guide. When you dine at participating restaurants, remember to snap a pic of dishes you like and add them to the guide.

After Restaurant Week, Hudson Valley food lovers will be invited to vote on their favorite photos. On April 1st, the winning photos will be chosen based on number of votes.

The owner of the photo with the most votes win one overnight stay at The DoubleTree Hotel in Tarrytown, NY, plus a $60 gift certificate for the hotel’s Bistro Z.

Three 2nd place prizes will be awarded for the next most voted photos. 2nd place winners will receive one of the following: $60 gift certificates to dine at Cosimo’s Trattoria in Poughkeepsie; La Lanterna in Yonkers; or Il Sorriso in Irvington. In the event of a tie, the editors will randomly select a winner from the top most voted photos.

Hudson Valley friends, book your table now while reservations last. Good luck, and eat up!

Photo: Sautéed Hudson Valley Foie Gras by Foodspotter Moriza.

Today is a big day for us - we're hosting our first official SXSW Street Food Fest, presented by BlackBerry. Most exciting is that this event celebrates the very beginnings of our partnership with BlackBerry. It should come as no big surprise that the Foodspotting and RIM teams have been working on an app together. We're thrilled! It will be launched shortly following SXSW.

If you're reading this and you're in Austin, you should join us at 2nd and Brazos between 11-4PM. Video and more photos to come. Best part is there's still time to participate in our Secret Menu Scavenger Hunt to win some great prizes. Hope to see you!

It's the team's first full day in Austin for this year's South by Southwest festival. Already we've met so many friendly foodspotters who have stopped us in the streets because they recognize us – and our awesome t-shirts.

As you know, we're here to meet so many more of you, to spread the Foodspotting gospel, to give our best shot at the Team Android Choice Awards, and to host a kick-ass Street Food Fest with BlackBerry this Sunday. In case you need a reminder why you should join the festivities and tell your friends to download Foodspotting, check out this schweet piece just posted on WIRED: "Foodspotting Turns Up Heat on Austin’s Food Trucks"

In the article, Jason Umlas, owner of Lucky J’s, which specializes in chicken-and-waffle tacos, says:

We couldn't have said it better ourselves. See you guys on Sunday!

Top photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

It was Foodspotting's inaugural Foodspotting First Friday – our first attempt to rally the Foodspotting troops for monthly eat-ups. As our startup's head of social media, I felt it was my duty to make it happen in New York. So I tweeted and I blogged and I let everyone know on Facebook. I made my boyfriend promise to stop by just in case I ended up at the bar spotting fried Italian rice balls by myself.

After the heartwarming success of World Foodspotting Day – 100 eat-ups happened across 25 countries for Foodspotting's 1st birthday! – it made sense to make these eat-ups official. So we created a Meetup page where foodspotters can find an existing eat-up or host their own in cities everywhere. This has worked spectacularly well for some, like our Philly-based foodspotters who got together for dim sum in February and are meeting again this coming Wednesday for burgers! (Details on Geekadelphia.)

Turns out, I needn't have worried so much. As soon as I heaved open Bar Stuzzichini's doors, there were already four of you guys there. Shortly after, two super sweet foodspotters visiting from Nashville introduced themselves, and over the two-hour gathering, over thirty people showed up, including a new foodspotter who had just moved to New York a week ago. Turns out, eat-ups are a pretty good way to meet new friends.

A huge thank you to everyone who took part in Foodspotting First Friday! If you didn't make it last week, join the next one or start a cool Foodspotting crew of your own on our Meetup page. Let us know, too, so we can help you get the word out.

Photos courtesy of Desmond Chow in New York City and Kim Ahlström in San Francisco.

If you haven't noticed, we're really excited about the Official SXSW Street Food Fest that we're hosting and presented by our friends at BlackBerry this Sunday. It's already looking to be a great event and we're pumped about our Secret Menu Scavenger Hunt featuring some amazing prizes.

Check it out:
- Spot 3 items to win a limited edition t-shirt provided by BlackBerry
- Spot 4 items to win a Peeps gift pack
- Spot 5 items to win one year's worth of a Squarespace account, plus a t-shirt
- Spot 6 items to win delicious Tasting Boxes by Foodzie
- Spot 8 items to get a BlackBerry device or $200 worth of Peeps money

First things first – follow the guide, spot away, and redeem prizes at our Street Food Fest, but hurry because we only have a limited number of prizes for each bracket!

Last but not least, a huge thanks goes to our wonderful prize sponsors and our friends at the food trucks for making this Secret Menu Scavenger Hunt possible.