Northwest Passages by Steve Murch

Nice mention of BigOven on ABC Evening News Los Angeles

Thanks, Lori!

Date:  July 9th, 2009

Include/Exclude Ingredients (NEW)

One of the most popular feature requests here at BigOven.com has been to improve searching to explicitly be able to include or exclude ingredients. 

Today we're pleased to announce that a beta version of this is now live, on www.bigoven.com.

Simply issue any search on www.bigoven.com the way you normally would, and then click the '[more options]' link that you'll see on the search results page.  That lets you further customize your search, adding ingredient keywords for explicit inclusion or exclusion.

Want to only see salads with feta cheese and tomatoes? 

Or, have an aversion to cauliflower?  Allergic to peanuts?  No problem.  Just enter the keywords you'd like to explicitly include or eliminate, and click "Search BigOven!".  Those terms will be used to further refine your search.

NOTE:  Currently, BigOven does text searches based on what you enter into those textboxes.  This means that if you're allergic to wheat, you should probably enter things like "wheat" in one box and "flour" in another box and maybe even "breadcrumbs" in another box, and then carefully examine the recipe itself to see if it meets your criteria.  Additionally, pay close attention to the singular and plural forms of the word(s) you're looking to include or exclude -- at this writing, excluding the team "anchovies" from your search might still return a recipe if it's got 1 and only "anchovy" (because the word "anchovy" is not the same as "anchovies").  Make sense? 

We agree it's not perfect, but it's a pretty handy tool that can helpyou zero in on the recipes that are just right for you.

Happy cooking!

(PS:  This feature is not yet available on the free iPhone App.)

 

Example:  Search all recipes with “salad” in the title, and “feta” and “tomatoes” in the ingredients text:

http://www.bigoven.com/private/searchrecipes.aspx?title=salad&with=feta,tomatoes&without=lemon

 

Foodie Status Updates (NEW!)

One of our long-term goals at BigOven is to help get you unstuck and inspired for dinner.  We think that the large worldwide community of over 500,000 BigOven users can help get you unstuck, and you can return the favor.  As just part of this thinking, today, we went live with a beta version of our "What's for dinner?" status updates that are free for all members.

Key idea:  It's like a Facebook or Twitter update, but for food. 

Why it's useful:  Help others (including yourself) get unstuck and inspired!  Jot a note to yourself, and the world, about what you're next making for dinner.  It needs to be short (200 chars or less, please, and no HTML.)  You can see people's ideas by clicking the "see" link, once you're logged in with your free account. 

Soon, we'll give you a personalized view of just what your "Foodie friends" make, as well as users of the same cooking skill level, BigOven members in your geographical area, people who liked recipes that you liked, etc.  You might find the best dinner inspiration from the people around you.

Better still, since we're logging these, keep in mind you're also writing notes for your future self, too...  If you use this regularly, we'll be able to remind you what you've made in the past to help get you unstuck for dinner.  Wouldn't it be great to know what you made last year, at this week in time?   In this way, it's kind of like a very short, spontaneous food journal.  Remember, everything you write on that status update is public, and goes onto your member profile page.  (Read our privacy policy for more details.)

Answer "What's for Dinner?" here...

See it here...

And here...

You can see the latest status update for a user on their member page, toward the top, e.g.:

http://www.bigoven.com/~admin

(And a bunch of places to come.)

We hope you find this useful.  We'll be building more and more on top of this in the future to help get you unstuck and inspired in the kitchen.  Happy cooking!

Manage Your Grocery List Online!

Ever want to make a grocery list on one computer, and have it on the go?   Or, have you ever wanted to make a grocery list that included one or more recipes on BigOven.com*? 

Well now you can!

Introducing the BigOven.com Grocery List... now in beta, at http://www.bigoven.com/grocery. 

Features

• Add a recipe right from the recipe page -- instead of saying "2 cloves garlic, 1 can anchovies", etc., you simply add the Caesar Salad recipe to your grocery list
• BigOven.com will let you easily eliminate the things you already have on-hand
• BigOven.com automatically guesses which aisle it’ll likely be found in.  By grouping items by department/aisle, you save time in the grocery store!
• Easily add items with a single text line -- e.g., Trying entering "1 1/2 lb Chicken Breast; Boneless" and BigOven.com will figure out what the item is (Chicken Breast), the quantity (1 1/2 lbs), notes (Boneless), and Department/Aisle (Poultry)!   BigOven.com learns over time what new items are added to the list; an editor approves new associations here.  It’ll get smarter and smarter over time!
• Print your grocery list
• or, perhaps best of all… delegate!   Quickly email it to a family member or yourself for easy access on the go!

Not yet implemented, but planned for the future:

• Easily access your grocery list from BigOven for the iPhone and BigOven Mobile Web for Blackberry and other cellphones (reachable at bigoven.com slash m)
• Scale recipes up or down before adding them to the list
• Modify/edit your grocery list on the iPhone
• Save shopping lists and retrieve them in the future
• Publish shopping list(s) from BigOven for Windows to your online list
• Allow other household members that you approve (who have BigOven logins) to read and/or modify your lists

This service is in beta testing. 

It's not yet perfect, but we're finding it pretty useful here, so we wanted to get it to you for feedback today.

NOTE:  This is currently free for all users, but we do not guarantee it will be free forever.  We reserve the right to bundle this in with a low-cost subscription offering we are planning for the future that'll provide a number of "extra" services such as this one.  (Of we’ll ask for “opt-in” to this… so test away!)

Here are a couple screenshots:

      

It's available at www.bigoven.com/grocery and by clicking on a link (coming soon) on your profile box while logged in. 

Please test it out and let us know what you think! 

Thanks, and happy cooking.

NEW: BigOven now links to Facebook with Facebook Connect

Today, we launched Facebook Connect for BigOven.com. 

You can now link your BigOven.com account and your Facebook account, and:

• Save time:  with a single login, you’re ready to go with both sites.
• Share a common profile:  Your Facebook avatar carries over to BigOven.com, and whenever you change it on Facebook, it automatically changes on BigOven.com.
• Share recipes with Facebook friends:  When you link your Facebook and BigOven.com accounts, you can easily post recipes to your Facebook wall, and share them with friends
• Make your chef page more personal:  When you link your account, other members can go right to your facebook profile page.

Now that Facebook and BigOven are connected, there’s much more to come.

As always, we adhere to the Privacy Policy on our website.  Among other things, we of course do not have any visibility into your Facebook login; that’s between you and Facebook. 

Attention Food Bloggers – Get More Traffic with BigOven Linkbacks

Are you a Food Blogger?  Want more traffic to your food blog?

NEW:  BigOven now offers automatic Linkbacks, on every recipe and Food Glossary page. 

Simply by grabbing a short piece of HTML from BigOven and placing it on your blog, your food-blog post will automatically be reciprocally linked from the appropriate page on BigOven.com, and you’ll gain more traffic.

If you want your readers to know about Rice, visit the BigOven Food Glossary entry on Rice, and grab the linking code, and place it on your site.  The link will look like this (or one of two other choices):

BigOven will notice it right away, and, once an editor here reviews your blog post and ensures it is relevant to the topic at-hand, we’ll happily link back to you.

The same holds true for recipes.

How Might You Use It?

Let’s say you’ve got a blog on easy, budget cooking, and you’re writing about the start of the grilling season.  You want to highlight a couple easy grilled chicken recipes for your readers.  If you’ve discovered the “Easy Grilled Chicken Marinade” recipe, you might find that an appropriate one to include in your blog post.

Simply visit that recipe’s page on BigOven, scroll to the “Bloggers, have you written about ‘Easy Grilled Chicken?” callout (at this writing, you’ll find it about three quarters down the page), and click on the “Add Your Link” section.  Then, choose which Linkback Badge you’d like, and place the HTML on your page. 

That’s it!  In a day or so, BigOven will start linking back to your blog, driving traffic to you, and increasing your search engine presence.  (BigOven serves millions of unique users each month.)

And by the way, the recipe’s pretty easy and delicious.  Fire up the grill and give it a try!

New: BigOven Recipe of the Day on the “Chumby Internet Radio Player”

Have you heard of the Chumby connected internet radio player?  

“It’s this loveable, huggable, squishable lump of silicon and plastic that is designed to be a more lovable, portable interface to the Interwebs.” – MacTalk.com

Simply put, the original Chumby Device (video below) brings the Internet to you, away from your computer screen:

You can add widgets for Twitter and Facebook updates, Flickr photos, weather reports, stock reports, and now, BigOven recipes!

The BigOven Recipe of the Day Widget is now available at no extra charge on the Chumby:

With it, you get a great recipe on your Chumby each day.  You can tap and have it emailed to you.  You also get a free Egg Timer. 

New Chumby Devices Coming Soon

The original Internet Radio Player is cool, but even more intriguing is the range of consumer devices that the Chumby team is working on powering with their OS. 

Here’s a sneak peek demonstrating early versions of the chumby software and services platform running on a range of consumer electronic devices, ranging from a Picture Frame, a Nokia Tablet, a Nintendo Wii and more:

For more information on Chumby, visit www.chumby.com.

Time Magazine: “Best iPhone Apps for New Moms”

Time Magazine named BigOven for iPhone in their roundup of 7 iPhone Apps for New Moms. 

Cooking

By Catherine Sharick

Have you ever wanted to know the ingredients for your favorite recipe while you were at the grocery store? Download BigOven to search over 170,000 recipes shared by 100,000 users from around the world. Sort by top-rated, read buying tips, and save recipes to try soon. To try something new, press the refresh button or shake your device and you will get a random recipe from the BigOven archive.

BigOven Site Overview – Video

Just got done producing an overview video for the site. 

It covers basic searching, the Try Soon Queue, the Favorites list, RecipeLinks and the Food Glossary.  Enjoy!

BigOven for iPhone Featured in AdAge Ad

The folks at AdMob are running an ad in this week’s Advertising Age (print edition) that promotes their system.  They chose BigOven for the iPhone as their example.