While on Windows messenger just now, I noticed a URL beside my cousin’s nickname – yum.sg. As she normally does not publicise URLs, I thought it unusual and checked it out. Turned out to be another food review site for Singaporeans, run by friends of hers.
I thought the website was more visually appealing than blurbme.com and Hungrygowhere.com. I was starting to wonder if anybody had already written a review of the review sites. Some quick Googling took me to a WhySGEntrepreneursSuck post in April.
As I expected, Hungrygowhere was rated the highest for community and content. I found specific restaurant reviews there, that weren’t on blurbme. Of course, blurbme covers more than food, though I feel it’s better to have one main focus. Amusingly, I know the brother of the guy behind Hungrygowhere. Singapore is a very small place. Maybe one day I’ll meet the founders of Blurbme too – probably a friend’s brother’s ex-classmate’s colleague.
The only thing is, we love food and like to share lobangs, so that’s probably why so many Food 2.0 sites have sprung up and have managed to keep on going.
What’s going to happen in the future? I predict things will firstly remain status quo – perhaps another new player or two may even venture into the market. However, given our small population, there will be a saturation point. The site with the strongest community and number of (good) reviews may just break away from the rest of the pack.
But what would be interesting is if these sites release their own APIs and you can embed your latest food reviews on your own websites. What if you could subscribe to an RSS feed on your favourite restaurant, or category of food? That would be so convenient.
And maybe some clever person will consolidate all these food websites into one mammoth portal and save us all the trouble of checking different URLs for the same restaurant. You know, something like the Bookjetty mashup. Ahem.