Rachel Salabes June 24, 2011

Overview With the popularity of food trucks and events such as Restaurant Week, there is no doubt that Washington, D.C.s food scene is thriving. Embracing this popular niche, Rate the Plate is a review website that will become an essential tool for food lovers in the D.C. area. Online reviews can be overly wordy when readers are often looking for one piece of information. In the case of restaurants, this is often What should I order? Rate the Plate fulfills the need for quickly answering this question. By visiting the site, readers will be able to immediately see how a restaurant's dishes have been rated by users. According to the National Restaurant Association (NRA), research shows that social media and review sites are increasingly affecting how consumers choose where to eat.1 In addition, the popularity of other online review sites indicate that Rate the Plate would attract a high amount of traffic. Although catering toward a much wider audience, Yelp had over 50 million unique visitors in April 2011 alone and has gathered over 18 million reviews.2 These numbers indicate the reviewing trend is not going anywhere in the near future. Reviewing restaurants is one of the most popular trends on online review sites. On Yelp, the majority of reviews, 25 percent, go toward restaurants.3 Sites focused solely on food have also proved their popularity. For example, UrbanSpoon, an online restaurant finder and app, has 10 million unique users a month.4 Demographics Rate the Plate is targeted toward technology-savvy food lovers. Of course, foodies come in all ages; however, it is important to look at demographics that will be more inclined to use this type of website. Rate the Plate will cater toward internet users between 18 and 49, a demographic that has embraced online review services. This is evidenced by Yelps most recent traffic analysis, which shows 42 percent of its users are between 18 and 34 and 33 percent are between 35 and 49.5 Research shows that online sites dedicated to food also draw similar demographics. For example, the majority of the audience for Food Truck Fiesta, a local site that tracks and blogs about D.C.
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Ruggless, Ron. NRA forecasts return to industry sales growth. Nation's Restaurant News. http://www.nrn.com/article/nra-forecasts-return-industry-sales-growth An introduction to Yelp: Metrics as of April 2011. www.yelp.com/html/pdf/Snapshot_April_2011_en.pdf Ibid. Urbanspoon celebrates 10 million iPhone app downloads. http://www.urbanspoon.com/blog/48/UrbanspoonCelebrates-10-Million-iPhone-App-Downloads.html An introduction to Yelp: Metrics as of April 2011. www.yelp.com/html/pdf/Snapshot_April_2011_en.pdf

food trucks, is 35 to 49 year olds.6 It is also essential that Rate the Plate cater toward individuals who use social media. 51 percent of these individuals say restaurants are an essential part of their lifestyle compared to 43 percent of all consumers.7 Research by the NRA also shows that frequent users of at least one social media tool or online review site are more active in the restaurant community.8 92 percent of these individuals eat a meal at a sit down restaurant at least once a month compared with 84 percent of all adults.9 Because Rate the Plate is based on Washington, D.C. restaurants, the site is also targeted to those who live within the city and suburban areas close to the city. Mission Statement The mission of Rate the Plate is simple: Rate the Plate is a unique social tool for D.C. food lovers. Share your opinions on dishes in D.C. restaurants and food trucks or have Rate the Plate help you decide what to order with a simple search. With Rate the Plate, you never have to wonder What should I order? Content The majority of content on Rate the Plate will be information contributed by users during the review process. In order to create a community atmosphere, a user must sign up for an account to leave a review. This allows for a more interactive and social environment. For example, if a user enjoys the ratings and comments that another user has left for particular dishes, he or she may see they have found someone that has similar taste as their own. The user can choose to follow that person and see what dishes they rate. If the user sees that person has left a high rating for the Pizza Focaccia at Paolo's in Georgetown, he or she may decide to try that restaurant and order the same dish the following week. The user would also know what dishes to potentially avoid based on lower ratings that particular person left for dishes at Paolo's. In addition to local restaurants, users also have the ability to review food trucks. The popularity of food trucks in the D.C. area has skyrocketed, particularly in the last year. According to statistics from the end of 2010, D.C. mobile vendors have garnered more than 47,000 Twitter followers.10 The NRA has also listed food trucks as one of the top trends in its 2011
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Quantcast. http://www.quantcast.com/foodtruckfiesta.com Ruggless, Ron. NRA forecasts return to industry sales growth. Nation's Restaurant News. http://www.nrn.com/article/nra-forecasts-return-industry-sales-growth Ruggless, Ron. NRA forecasts return to industry sales growth. Nation's Restaurant News. http://www.nrn.com/article/nra-forecasts-return-industry-sales-growth Ibid. Carman, Tim. Inside D.C.'s Food-Truck Wars. Washington City Paper. http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/39815/inside-dc-food-truck-wars/full/

Restaurant Industry Forecast. According to the report, mobile kitchens or food trucks are likely to become even more widely available than they are now.11 Food Truck Fiesta already lists at least fifty food trucks operating in the D.C. area.12 The process to leave a review is simple. Rate the Plate is continuously updated with restaurants opening in the area along with their menu. The user will type in the name of the restaurant in the search bar. After clicking on the proper restaurant, the user will be presented with the opportunity to rate their dishes. To rate each plate, the user will click an arrow and be presented with a drop down of menu items. After selecting the dish, the user will be asked to rate their plate on a scale of 1 to 5. Since numbers vary in meaning depending on the person, each number will have a short description next to it in order to maintain consistency. After a user clicks submit, the ratings will be averaged with the votes of other users New restaurants open all the time; therefore, it is always a possibility that Rate the Plate has not yet added a menu to its database or a menu has become outdated. To account for this, there will be a button present on every page saying Are we missing a menu? If a menu is not yet uploaded, users can still type in the dishes they ate and submit a rating. When the menu is added, user dish votes will be matched to the proper menu item. Along with ratings, users can leave comments. Rate the Plate is about delivering clear information quickly; however, users will still be provided with the opportunity to share more details. This may include why they selected a particular rating, sides they ordered, which appetizers they recommend, and so on. A comparative analysis to other local food sites has shown that comments are part of creating an interactive environment; however, comments will be limited to 500 characters to prevent the site from becoming overly text heavy.13 After all, simplicity on a website is key.14 Users also have the option to upload photos of their meal to a collective gallery for the restaurant, which will be displayed with user credit. This has proved to be a popular feature on review websites such as Yelp. According to Yelps latest statistics, every 30 seconds, a photo is uploaded from the Yelp mobile app.15
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Ruggless, Ron. NRA forecasts return to industry sales growth. Nation's Restaurant News. http://www.nrn.com/article/nra-forecasts-return-industry-sales-growth Food Truck Fiesta. http://www.foodtruckfiesta.com An examination of local food sites showed that comments sections are still an important feature. The Washington Post provides the ability to comment, as well as a discussion section. TBD, Washingtonians Best Bites, and local food blogs (such as Capital Spice and Capitol Bites) all allow for user comments. Jarvis, Jeff. What Would Google Do?. New York: HarperCollins e-books, 2009. Page 116. An introduction to Yelp: Metrics as of April 2011. www.yelp.com/html/pdf/Snapshot_April_2011_en.pdf

Incorporating social networks into the review process is essential for reaching Rate the Plate's target demographics. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, internet users of all ages are more likely to use a social network site today than they were in 2008. As of 2010, 80 percent of internet users between the ages of 18 and 35 were using a social network and 48 percent of internet users over the age of 35 had used a social networking site.16 By clicking share, the user can tweet I just gave a 5 to the Ceviche Veracruzana at Oyamel @Ratetheplate or change their Facebook status to say, [Name] just rated her meal at Zaytinya on Rate the Plate. Rate the Plate understands that social media has become an important part of the dining experience. As the NRA says, staff members in the District of Columbia decide where to go for lunch depending on what social-media messages they have received in the morning.17 Leaving a review looks like this:

A main feature of Rate the Plate is the search bar, which will be highly visible across the top of all pages of the site. Here, there are several search options in order to provide a flexible experience to the user. Since anyone can search and view results on Rate the Plate, any visitor may type in the name of the restaurant, the type of food (e.g. Thai, Italian, American), or location. The user will be presented with a list of results depending upon the search query. For example, if someone has searched for a restaurant name, the user will be presented with a list of possible matches. If a user searches for a type of cuisine, a list will be presented with restaurants that match. If someone searches by location, the user will see restaurants in the area, no matter the type of cuisine they serve. In the list of search results, the top three dishes
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Social networking sites and our lives. Pew Internet and American Life Project. http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Technology-and-social-networks/Part-2.aspx?view=all Ruggless, Ron. NRA forecasts return to industry sales growth. Nation's Restaurant News. http://www.nrn.com/article/nra-forecasts-return-industry-sales-growth

for each restaurant will be visible. After a restaurant has been clicked, Rate the Plate results will look

like this: Rate the Plate is a simple, straight-forward concept and the design of the website will reflect this. As Jeff Jarvis emphasizes, The simpler and clearer the design, the better.18 In addition to the simple design of dish ratings, the homepage will display only five restaurants in order to not overwhelm the viewer. The restaurants that are displayed are dependent upon the dishes that have been most recently rated. Each restaurant will have a user image of the recently rated dish if available. If not, the image area will be filled with the Rate the Plate logo. Images will be small so that upload time will be short. A smaller column will run down the left side of the homepage and will be an area to incorporate additional elements, such as social media and advertisements. Additional Website Elements Rate the Plate is a social experience based around the community of users. Therefore, in addition to the share option during the review process, Rate the Plate will have a Twitter feed streaming down the side of the homepage. Those that tweet @RatethePlate or use the hashtag #ratetheplate will appear in the Twitter feed. For example, an included tweet may look like this, Just had fantastic pad thai at Mai Thai #ratetheplate. Rate the Plate will have its own Twitter account, as well. Sample tweets will encourage user involvement such as, The highly anticipated Graffiato opens today! Dont forget to #ratetheplate! The Twitter feed will also be used to interact with users. A Rate the Plate Twitter account will contribute to the site's success. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, Twitter use by Rate the Plates key demographics has increased in the past several years. Twitter
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Jarvis, Jeff. What Would Google Do?. New York: HarperCollins e-books, 2009. Page 116.

use for users between the ages of 25 and 34 has doubled since late 2010, growing from 9 to 19 percent.19 Twitter usage between the ages of 35 and 44 has also grown significantly, increasing from 8 to 14 percent.20 The data shows that Twitter is highly used by those in urban areas, representing 15 percent of users compared to 7 percent in rural areas.21 Another important additional element of this website will be the Rate the Plate mobile app. Rate the Plate is a service that a user will want to access anytime and anywhere. Dining experiences are often spontaneous. If a customer enters a restaurant on a whim and hasnt heard any information about their food, Rate the Plate should be accessible immediately to help that customer choose what to order. If a user is excited about a meal they just had and wants to rate the dishes immediately, accessing Rate the Plate needs to be a possibility. Mobile apps for both food and review sites have proved to be successful. Yelp's mobile app has 3.7 million unique visitors and over one-third of Yelp searches come from a mobile device.22 Urbanspoon has also found much of its success through a mobile app, which reached ten million downloads in September of 2010.23 According to Pew's State of the News Media 2011, nearly half of one of Rate the Plates key demographics (18-29 year olds) obtain local information via their mobile device.24 Additionally, 37 percent of all mobile device owners say they get material about restaurants or local businesses on their mobile device.25 Research has also shown that consumers want a mobile app that is practical and in real time.26 The Rate the Plate mobile app would fulfill both of these characteristics, updating dish ratings in real time. Editorial Voice and Tone Overall, there will be little original content on the website since most information will be contributed by users. Original content will be found in the About Us section and the FAQ, as well as directional elements of the website. Readers will be able to see the most original content on the Rate the Plate
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Smith, Aaron. Twitter Update 2011. Pew Internet and American Life Project. http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Twitter-Update-2011.aspx Ibid. Ibid. An introduction to Yelp: Metrics as of April 2011. www.yelp.com/html/pdf/Snapshot_April_2011_en.pdf Urbanspoon celebrates 10 million iPhone app downloads. http://www.urbanspoon.com/blog/48/UrbanspoonCelebrates-10-Million-iPhone-App-Downloads.html Kiesow, Damon. State of the News Media 2011: The 3 things people want on mobile devices and how you can provide them. Poynter. http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/media-lab/mobile-media/123202/state-of-the-newsmedia-2011-the-3-things-people-want-on-their-mobile-devices-and-how-you-can-provide-them/ Ibid. Ibid.

Twitter feed. This content will remain neutral and simply serve as a way to encourage user participation and interact with users. Competitive Landscape The DC foodie has a variety of resources that already exist; therefore, Rate the Plate is entering a relatively competitive market. There are many resources on established websites with existing reputations, such as Washington Post, TBD, and Washingtonian. D.C. also has a community of established food bloggers, such as Capital Spice and Eat.Drink.DC. The Washington Post presents one of the most comprehensive local D.C. food guides on the web, consisting of reviews, recipes, and dining guides. However, its comprehensiveness may be its downfall. A visitor of this site may not know where to begin. Once again, the key to a successful website is simplicity.27 Furthermore, while many of these websites provide restaurant reviews, this is the voice of one writer. Why trust the opinion of one when you can see the thoughts of dozens, maybe even hundreds? Yelp serves as one of the major sources of competition for Rate the Plate as it dominates the online review market. However, both Yelp and The Washington Post are moving in the opposite direction of the minds of todays digital society. Yelp provides an extensive amount of information, ranging from reviews of doctors to nightclubs. In addition, many Yelp reviews are wordy. Scanning a lengthy review for specific information is a timely process by todays standards. According to author Nicholas Carr, the internet has changed the way we read. We now scan for key words and phrases and get agitated when reading long passages of text. When quoting a Nielsen report, Carr writes, 'How do users read on the web?'...'They don't.'28 Rate the Plate caters to the internet mind. The site quickly delivers information on one topic, in a visually simple and streamlined manner. Popular D.C. food blogs and critics also serve as competition. Often, users come to respect the opinions of bloggers, as well as trusted critics from sites such as The Washingtonian. While these sites could be the competition, a partnership between Rate the Plate and these local sites would be more valuable. Rate the Plate will encourage local bloggers and critics to join the site and contribute their vote. For example, Washingtonian has a large following and is trusted by its readers. When displaying vote results, there will be an asterisk next to the
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Jarvis, Jeff. What Would Google Do?. New York: HarperCollins, 2009. Carr, Nicholas. The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010. Page 136.

proper dish that says *Washingtonian recommends this dish, linking to their review. This will create a relationship with local websites and blogs, where they will be encouraged to use and contribute to Rate the Plate and the link will drive traffic to their site. As Jeff Jarvis explains, Every link and every click is a connection, and with every connection, a network is born or grows stronger...The more connections there are, the greater the value.29 Potential Advertisers Rate the Plate has a variety of potential advertisers; however, to maintain Rate the Plates clean design, users will never be overwhelmed with too many advertisements. Advertisements will only be placed along the side of the site or in a small vertical banner ad. This will be limited to two advertisements on the homepage, and up to three on search result pages. Rate the Plate will be the perfect environment to incorporate advertisements from deal sites such as Groupon, Living Social, and Buy With Me, which often provide deals on local restaurants and bars. These sites have proven interest in advertising on popular review sites and on sites that are focused on food. For example, a Groupon ad is currently located on the homepage of Urbanspoon.30 Online delivery sites, such as Allmenus, Seamless Web, and Mr. Delivery would be eager to advertise their services on a site that is focused on local food. Local restaurants would also have a strong interest in advertising on Rate the Plate, knowing that the site's visitors enjoy dining out more than the average adult. As mentioned previously, Rate the Plate also provides the opportunity for partnerships with local blogs and websites focused on food, providing benefit to both Rate the Plate and its partners. Summary Aimed toward food lovers between the ages of 18 and 49, Rate the Plate users will no longer have to wonder what to order. Users can search for dish ratings at local D.C. restaurants and food trucks or leave their own ratings to share with the community. Rate the Plate will incorporate social networks and a mobile app to appeal to social media and technology savvy consumers, as research has shown that these types of individuals are more likely to be involved in the restaurant community. Despite a competitive environment, Rate the Plate will separate itself with the ability to quickly and simply find information that pertains to one topic. Rate the Plate will attract advertisers, such as Groupon and Living Social, and also build partnerships with local food blogs and websites to form
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Jarvis, Jeff. What Would Google Do?. New York: HarperCollins, 2009. Advertisement located on the bottom of Urbanspoons homepage on June 23, 2011.

a mutually beneficial relationship. Rate the Plate will become a tool that D.C. food lovers cannot imagine living without.