ottawa foodies

A project I have recently been trying to get off the ground is a facebook group dedicated to making a list of restaurants in Ottawa. The purpose being so that people looking for a night out or who are coming to Ottawa for travel can use my facebook group (I know there are a lot of people who don't have it, but there are a hell of a lot that do.) to find a restaurant that fits their budget and the type of cuisine they like.

As I said it's a really new group, with only 62 members and 1 restaurant (Santé, because I work above them, it was easy to get their info). However I'm currently talking to 3 other restaurants trying to get them on board and would really like to get some more members to the group to help develop it. If you would like to check it out/ join and suggest a restaurant that should be added go to:

uottawa.facebook.com

If you want to help it out that would be great, I can even put a link to this site if you guys want. But please come check it out, join and add your friends, thanks!

Sounds like you are re-inventing the wheel.
Why not just point the group to this site?

Or point them at the facebook group for OttawaFoodies. ;)

www.facebook.com

I do plan on putting the link to this site up, but not everyone looking to go out for food will be willing to sign up for a forum and look threw it for a review on a specific restaurant.

The plan is to have this site up there and hopefully get more people here, because you are good people and all! ;) but I think there are also a lot of people on facebook who might just want to quickly look up something from a group on facebook. I understand why you think it might be repetitive, but that's what a lot of the internet is, and it gets to more people the more it's out there.

I agree with zymurgist. There are too many portals to the same information out there. But I wish you good luck and maybe you will prove me wrong. :)

I just took a look at the Ottawa Foodies Facebook group and wondered if all that content wouldn't be better on this site, and if it's existence discourages the growth of ottawafoodies.com. I'm thinking if I join the Facebook group then I might post stuff there that I wouldn't post here.

This certainly isn't heavy stuff but I still wonder about these things. :)

I just went to the facebook restaurant group and searched on "Market" and nothing came up, even though the Sante restaurant entry clearly contains the work.

Still seems like a silly idea to me. Even moreso given that a person seemingly cannot search it.

The reason I created the group was because the Ottawa Foodies Group did not come up when I searched for Ottawa Restaurants, and I thought it would be a useful index to have.

It is my first major project that I have attempted on facebook and I don't think it is even a week old, so yes there are still issues I have to work out. I didn't think it would get such a negative reaction here, but that's fine. Be assured, I'm not trying to take any traffic away from you, I just wanted a place that was solely for the reviews and upcoming events at local restaurants and bars.

I created the Facebook group mostly as a way for people from this site to congregate socially and to passively advertise its existence to their friends (because their friends see which groups they are subscribed to). Unlike revenue-driven websites, I'm not interested in attracting as many users as possible! Rather, I'd like to attract intelligent and knowledgeable users who can share excellent information with us. My thinking is that good foodies are more likely than the average person on the street to have friends who are also good foodies. :-)

Pook is of course free to create any group he wants on facebook. If it seems redundant, that's okay... the internet doesn't mind!

ollie, there's precious little information in the Ottawa Foodies facebook group. I agree that what is there would be better discussed here, but I know of several people in that group who are not on this site. I prefer to think of that group as a completely separate entity from this one, which allows friends of foodies to discover our little site here. No harm done.

The fact is, when the 99% of Ottawans who are not regular visitors to Ottawa Foodies or Restaurant Thing need to look up info about a restaurant they turn to Google. Google turns up an assortment of relevant links -- including some to this site.

I'm not trying to attract users so I can bring in revenue...it's a face book group. I'm trying to attract numbers to get suggestions and info on different restaurants.

What this site lacks is a section that is about each restaurant where promotions, deals and events are being posted and updated on a regular basis, and that is what I'm trying to build. However, like anything that is trying to start up, I'm running into some road blocks.

Also it is not deep intellectual conversation on food that I'm looking for with the facebook group. It is more did you like the restaurant or not and if you would recommend it to a friend.

Anyways, if anyone wants to help, you can find the group by searching Ottawa Restaurants on facebook, clearly Fresh Foodies thinks it's a bad idea, but I disagree.

clearly Fresh Foodies thinks it's a bad idea

Clearly you misunderstood what I wrote. :-)

I support anything anyone does to encourage dialogue about food in Ottawa. I don't require all such dialogue to take place on this site.

What this site lacks is a section that is about each restaurant...

Eh? One of the fundamental concepts of Ottawa Foodies is having a conversation thread about each restaurant. These forums were added as an afterthought...

Ah ok, it doesn't seem like that as a new member, the thing that attracted my attention was this forum. I did find the individual restaurant listings afterwards, but they don't have the upcoming deals and what not. You do a good job of providing feedback for each restaurant, but from the ones I've looked at there aren't really sections to promote that stuff.

I'd go and visit Pook's facebook page, and see for myself what it looks like and the value it can bring to the Ottawa Foodie community, but unlike OttawaFoodies, you can not view it if you are not a member. Yes, I know it is free, but is it really? What Facebook charges for the privilege of using their service, is the ability to gather information about you, and your friends, and your friends friends. That is not a fair deal as far as I'm concerned. I'm sure FreshFoodie does have some nefarious purpose behind creating this site (perhaps funded by the Foodie Stasi?), but at least his funding (unlike Facebook) didn't come (partially) from a CIA (yes.. as in Central Intelligence Agency) backed venture capital funding group, whose board members were once part of the the TIA (Total Information Awareness) research project which wanted to have the federal government (in the USA) gather a database of everyone, everyone they know, and everything they do, so that they can catch the bad guys of course! Obviously, I wear my tinfoil hat fervently, but if you factcheck, everything I just said is more or less true.

As for advertising upcoming deals, coupons or whatever, that does seem to smack of some form of monetization regardless of who is making the money off it.

FWIW I think that the "upcoming deals" part would be a nice way for Fresh Foodie to make some money here. In fact, back in about 1997 I worked for a company that was a little ahead of it's time and had a NS-based website which did just this for restaurants.

I'm thinking Foodie could write an add-on here which allowed a business to pay for the privilege of having their own presence here on the site where they could update their specials and so forth.

Nothing wrong with making money on a website. Especially when there is lots of hard work going into it. It took me about 2 years to make the decision to put ads on my website, and after doing so I put this disclaimer up :

www.bodensatz.com

EDIT : p.s. FWIW the ad money I take in does not even come close to covering my costs, so it's rather a stretch to say I "make money" off it :-)

Hey guys, thanks for your suggestions. There are several ways I could make money from this site but I'm not really interested. For starters, since it is Ottawa-specific, the size of it is self-limiting. This means that my total web traffic is relatively low and doesn't require any funding outside of what I require for personal use. In other words, I incur no tangible recurring costs above what I would have without this site. It also means that the money I *could* make from it is relatively small.

Had I contracted out the design and development of this site from scratch to a third party I would have been charged several tens of thousands of dollars (plus some maintenance fee). This is where "doing it yourself" really saves money, but of course I had to have the drive, technical ability, and the conviction that this was a unique idea.

If this site started generating income I'd need to worry about taxation and possible impacts to my current employment situation. I prefer to just keep it as a hobby, with my only payment being the acquisition of foodie knowledge and the vicarious enjoyment of all your dining experiences! :-)

i joined the "ottawa foodies" facebook group yesterday, but as much as facebook groups can be fine, there's nothing like a site like this one here devoted to food. :)

Pete-In-Ot You are a paranoid little @#$% aren't you?

[FF EDIT: I replaced your expletive with symbols. Try to keep things clean here.]

It's true actually. Facebook does sell your information. The default privacy setting allows them to share everything with 3rd parties - even your photos and wall messages. If you don't want them selling your info for profit then you'd need to adjust those settings - which most people don't realize.

I'd say you were too young Pook ( and not likely politically educated ) to recognize the name McCarthy, and even too young to think it's Molly Ringwald's love interest in Pretty in Pink. I most certainly am not referring to the person who appeared in Playboy (October 1993) who's name you are most likely to recognize. However if you google former U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, you will discover the persona of a man veritably haunted by paranoia, and driven to do crazy things to ordinary people who didn't agree with his witchhunt. I prefer to think of myself more as the nemesis of paranoia Edward R. Murrow. Unfortunately, only time will tell which of us is correct. Thanks for the word of support HOT.

What! Another foodies site? I haven't had time to visit this site lately and so happy to see so many new foodies joined. Don't want to join another site. This one is good enough!