If you’re hungry and you know it, Burpple has a solution. The Singapore-based startup might just become the next Google for food.
Burpple, a Singapore-based mobile food journal, has just announced their new upcoming web feature: The Burpple Social Food Guide.
At its launch party yesterday, an exclusive preview of its Social Food Guide was presented to some of its avid users. With the new Burpple On The Web, you can:
- Search and browse from over 700,000 dishes and 6,000 restaurants, cafes and hawkers in Singapore.
- Explore amazing restaurants and cafes, complete with all the essential information such as address, map directions, opening hours and prices through its recently launched Burpple Places.
- Find out the top dishes in a restaurant, the number of recommendations, how the food looks, their prices and most importantly, positive feedback from people who love them. This helps you to answer the grand question, “What should I eat today”?
- From restaurant pages, you can discover and interact with community of people who have shared their experiences.
“For the first time, this is truly word-of-mouth at scale. We believe this will set the benchmark for recommendation engines in the years to come. We are excited by the potential of Social Menus, and we believe Burpple is uniquely positioned to do this,” said Dixon Chan, Burpple president and co-founder.
Here’s a peek at their upcoming Burpple on the web look:
This is interesting. To see Burpple taking a cue from Google, which has its search function as its core feature, is definitely one way of answering the question of where consumers should dine at. In terms of user experience, your killer feature should always be one interaction away. You just need one click to search on Google, to watch a video on YouTube and snap away on Instagram. Now, with Burpple going on the web, this means consumers can search for great food in just one click.
The social menu which Burpple is focusing on looks promising. One of the problem that I have with most restaurants is that there’s just too much to look at. Most of their dishes do not have pictures or recommendations from customers. If there’s a way for me to discover food at restaurants through an interactive menu, which could show me recommendations from other customers, that would greatly increase my experience and satisfaction. The opportunity which Burpple is looking into is potentially huge, and we might just have a shot at creating a Google for food.
If you are interested in the Food tech space and its various opportunities, you can read this article from 500 Startups’ Dave McClure: Why Menus Suck + Other Deep Thoughts on the Food Tech Revolution.
Here’s an abstract of the article cited:
menus suck. we need less items, more pictures, and [just] a few recommendations. menus should be online, so they can integrate user data & purchase history to customize selection, offer discounts, and to connect with friends for favorites and referrals / group offers. the market is huge, purchase behavior is frequent, industry incumbents are old, slow, and easily disrupted. everyone eats, everyone is online; what the hell we waiting for? – Dave McClure
The new Burpple Social Food Guide will be released first on the web, and later on its mobile platforms.
Ambitious plans ahead
Burpple also announced 20 premium merchant partners who come from a range of top tier restaurants providing different cuisine. Through their partners, the Singapore-based startup will be focusing on providing high quality implementation and service support to their users. They will also be introducing their tastemakers program, which helps curate items and connect food lovers here in Singapore.
With over half a million rich photo reviews posted in less than a year, Burpple has five times the number of reviews of the current food network in Singapore. Over the past few months, Burpple has also garnered more than 200,000 photo reviews in Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, and expects to launch its Social Food Guide in these countries in the third quarter of 2013. 76 percent of Burpple users are aged between 18 and 34 years.
Burpple is backed by Neoteny Labs and QuestVC.
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More stories on Burpple:
Neoteny and QuestVC feeds Burpple US$500K in funding
Burpple, a social food sharing app burps its way into China
Burpple goes on the web to help you become a better foodie
Burpple launches smartest marketing campaign, the Tummy Race
Dave McClure hungry for food tech, 500 Startups heading east soon
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