WebProNews

Tag: menus

  • Google Officially Announces Restaurant Menu Results

    Earlier this month, Google was spotted showing new card-style menu results for restaurant searches for some users.

    One tweeted a screenshot:

    Google has now announced the feature:


    Google doesn’t go into specifics about where these menu results come from.

    As others have pointed suggested, Google may draw menu info from Allmenus.com, given that this is the source for the Menu feature on the restaurant in the first example’s local result.

    Either way, this is just the latest example of Google supplying more of the information on its own properties rather than sending traffic to other sites.

  • Google Shows New Menu Results For Restaurants

    Google is showing some users new card-style menu results for restaurants.

    Allie Brown tweeted a screenshot (via Search Engine Land):

    It would appear that this is only a test at this point, but if rolled out, this would be another instance of Google showing content to users on the search results page, making it so they don’t have to click over to another website.

    In this case, the result would be just as helpful to the business as a site visit, assuming it hopes to lure in customers with its menu.

    As others have pointed out, it’s a safe bet that Google is drawing the menu info from Allmenus.com, given that this is the source for the Menu feature on the restaurant’s local result.

  • Foursquare Now Lets You Search by Specific Foods in Your Area

    Foursquare has just made another small step in their push to challenge Yelp, Google Places, and other local search and discovery apps. Starting today, Foursquare users can now search for specific food items and the app will pull up the various locations in the area where they can be found.

    “Just type what you’re looking for into Foursquare and we’ll show you all the restaurants nearby that serve that dish, with info straight from their menus (and our 32 million tips). It’s this sort of data that powers our new magical proactive recommendations, and which only Foursquare can do,” says Foursquare.

    Not only can you search specific food items like “brisket” or “bulgogi,” but you can also search basic dietary restrictions like “gluten free.”

    Foursquare’s new food search springs out of a recent partnership with Locu, and web menu platform. This allowed Foursquare to expand its database of menus – one that now contains over 43 million food items (according to the company).

    It may not seem like a huge update, but it’s a really interesting way for Foursquare to leverage its data. Sometimes, you just have a hankering for a specific food, and Foursquare is now offering a quick way for you to find every restaurant in the vicinity that features that specific dish.

    This new feature doesn’t require an app update, as long as you have the most-recent version that launched on August 26th for Android and August 27th for iOS.

    Last week, Foursquare announced that they had hit 40 million users – as well as 40,000 “superusers” who help better the location database with their editing privileges.

    Image via Foursquare

  • Foursquare Adds More Menus, Continues to Become a Better Tool for Local Search & Discovery

    Foursquare Adds More Menus, Continues to Become a Better Tool for Local Search & Discovery

    Over the past year or so, Foursquare has been going through a major transformation – well, at least a major improvement. What they’ve been doing is making both small and large tweaks to turn the focus of the service toward local search and discovery. A company that started as a simple check-in app is now competing with the likes of Yelp, Google Places, and Urbanspoon.

    You may recall a major app update last month with a stated goal to “reveal more of the world around you the moment you open up the app.” Then, a few weeks later, Foursquare completely redesigned their location pages to make them more photo-rich and informative. If you have increased traffic to your location pages (which Foursquare does) and want to continue to tout yourself as the go-to place for information on locations, you have to keep making those pages better.

    Today, Foursquare is taking another step in that direction with an expansion of menus on restaurant pages.

    “It’s a Saturday night and you’re meeting friends for dinner. You’ve narrowed the choices down to two popular Italian spots – but how to choose? Starting today, you’ll see more menus in Foursquare, so you can decide given what restaurants have to offer. In addition to SinglePlatform, we’ve also partnered with Locu (a company that shares our mission of helping restaurants and local businesses connect with customers),” says Foursquare.

    Locu is a web-wide menu platform founded in 2011. Last year, it received $4 million in Series A funding, fyi. Foursquare has partnered with SinglePlatform on their menus since the launch of the “Explore” feature in January of 2012.

    Right now, it’s just menus for restaurants – but Foursquare says that will eventually grow into price and service lists for a variety of businesses. That includes hair salons, gyms, dry cleaners, etc.