Restaurant reviews
Marc points out a new restaurant review site, for NYC. Nice. Anyone can add or edit. The sort of place that might form a community.
I wonder if there are any good restaurant review sites for Christchurch. For the purposes of this test, I'm going to define "good" as "includes Osaka-ya". Osaka-ya is a great little Japanese restaurant in the central city - I eat there probably once every couple of weeks. Not much on the web about it - google: osaka-ya christchurch gets most of it.
It's obscure but very popular/busy. I don't expect it to show on any bland "paid inclusion"-type list, but I'd consider it a required entry to any real restaurant site.
OK: Google for "christchurch restaurants" and what do we get? A few "travel guide" sites. Obviously somebody's had a go at adding restaurants to whatsonchristchurch.co.nz, but I can't see anywhere to add anything myself. And there's only one in the "Japanese" category - Sala Sala (expensive, really well known). Nope.
localeye.info might be a better bet - after all, somebody added my photoblog to their photo galleries and webcams list, so at least there's some activity there. Restaurants are hard to find from the front page -- they seem to be hidden under business and finance (a search gets me there). Uh-oh, it's small enough that Japanese restaurants don't even get their own category - the sole representative is, once again, Sala Sala, showing up twice in the Asian category. Damn.
Next: entertainmentnz.com has a Japanese restaurants section that includes Osaka-ya. Just an address/phone number though. That site is terrible to use, too. It feels like a vehicle to sell discount cards. Managed to convince Vodafone and MORE FM to advertise, though, so it must have some credibility in the business community. Hmm.
Update
Here's almost exactly what I want: google for christchurch food review and get dineout.co.nz, which has three reviews for Osaka-ya. It's a bit more heavily edited than addyourown, but the critical thing -- letting users add to the site -- is there. Perfect.
I wonder if there are any good restaurant review sites for Christchurch. For the purposes of this test, I'm going to define "good" as "includes Osaka-ya". Osaka-ya is a great little Japanese restaurant in the central city - I eat there probably once every couple of weeks. Not much on the web about it - google: osaka-ya christchurch gets most of it.
It's obscure but very popular/busy. I don't expect it to show on any bland "paid inclusion"-type list, but I'd consider it a required entry to any real restaurant site.
OK: Google for "christchurch restaurants" and what do we get? A few "travel guide" sites. Obviously somebody's had a go at adding restaurants to whatsonchristchurch.co.nz, but I can't see anywhere to add anything myself. And there's only one in the "Japanese" category - Sala Sala (expensive, really well known). Nope.
localeye.info might be a better bet - after all, somebody added my photoblog to their photo galleries and webcams list, so at least there's some activity there. Restaurants are hard to find from the front page -- they seem to be hidden under business and finance (a search gets me there). Uh-oh, it's small enough that Japanese restaurants don't even get their own category - the sole representative is, once again, Sala Sala, showing up twice in the Asian category. Damn.
Next: entertainmentnz.com has a Japanese restaurants section that includes Osaka-ya. Just an address/phone number though. That site is terrible to use, too. It feels like a vehicle to sell discount cards. Managed to convince Vodafone and MORE FM to advertise, though, so it must have some credibility in the business community. Hmm.
Update
Here's almost exactly what I want: google for christchurch food review and get dineout.co.nz, which has three reviews for Osaka-ya. It's a bit more heavily edited than addyourown, but the critical thing -- letting users add to the site -- is there. Perfect.