People love to take pictures of their food, especially with their mobile phones. And like all things mobile, apparently this activity started in Japan. “Most social networks have been inspired by East Asian tech trends,” declares Foodspotting co-founder Soraya Darabi on this episode of Founder Stories (watch the video). At least that is where the idea for Foodspotting came from when her co-founder Alexa Andrzejewski was visiting Japan and noticed everybody snapping pics of their food with their phones. Now Foodspotting geotags those pics and lets you share them with your foodie friends.
Darabi, who started out as the manager of digital partnerships and social media for the New York Times , talks about how Foodspotting got started, its mission to help “the world discover great dishes,” and some of its recent traction. The company recently raised $3 million, now has more than 650,000 downloads of its iPhone app alone, launched an Android app, and its website traffic doubled in January. (This interview was taped in February before SXSW).
In the video segment below, Darabi and host Chris Dixon talk about her earlier role at the New York Times, social media in general and consuming news via Twitter versus a newspaper. (Note that here Vivian Schiller reference was made before Schiller resigned from NPR earlier this month). “I still drink the Kool-Aid, I love the Times,” she says. Dixon says he gets all his news from Twitter.