We crossed 1 million unique users per month in July 2008, and three months later, I'm pleased to announce that BigOven.com is crossing 2 million unique users for October 2008.
BigOven is now serving more than half a million pageviews every single day.
Year over Year Growth Encouraging
Let's take a quick look at some year-over-year comparisons:
Lots more people are joining the site. On October 30, 2007, 94 people from around the world joined BigOven.com. Yesterday, Oct 30, 2008, that number was 3,337. That's a 35-fold increase year over year.
Lots more pages are being viewed. Last year from Sept 30-Oct-30, BigOven.com served up 742,285 pages viewed. This year, for the same period, it's 5,802,932. (Note: I'm not a huge fan of the pageviews metrics, as AJAX features cause this number to register pretty low. But it is true that the site has seen some pretty significantly increased traffic.)
Last year at this time we had 0 cooking videos posted to the site. At this writing we have 547.
Still climbing up the charts. BigOven is now the 5th most popular Free App on iTunes, and the most popular food-related app overall by a fairly large margin.
Being in the Top 5 means that a link to it is shown whenever you launch iTunes, because the homepage lists the Top 5. And it's right there when you tap "Top Free Apps" on your iPhone, above-the-fold. Of course, this will all change soon, but it's cool to see for now.
Of the thousands of apps for the Apple iPhone, BigOven 160,000+ Recipe Search has now risen to #28#17#15#13#9 #8 on the list of Free Apps (overall), and is currently beating out Google for the iPhone, NY Times for the iPhone and even the always-popular UrbanSpoon for the iPhone. Of course, that's probably because most users already have those apps, but still, it's pretty astonishing to see the takeup on this app. I haven't spent any money marketing it at all yet.
It is currently the thirdsecond most popular app (of 300) out of all the "Lifestyle" apps as of October 29th.
The app becomes more useful if you've got a BigOven.com account, because you can create Favorites and Try Soon Lists of recipes. And you can post your own family favorites from any web browser, then access them on your iPhone.
Now that the app lets you register with Bigoven.com without visiting your desktop computer, site signups for the last two days have tripled the previous highwater marks in daily site registrations.
In the first 5 days of launch, we've crossed more than 100,000 downloads of the app. We hit some server performance issues as a result of the increased demand on the servers... a problem I guess it's good to have, but one we're not quite through yet.
If you have iTunes installed on your PC or Mac, you can download it by clicking here.
Thanks to John Cook and Seattle's cool new TechFlash Seattle Tech News site for his mention today.
In the first three days since I published the BigOven 160,000+ Recipe Search iPhone App, the daily download counts of the app have been approximately 2,600, 3,200 and 7,553. (That's number of times the app was downloaded.)
Astonishingly, yesterday, a little over 5% of the pageviews of the entire BigOven.com site were from either via iPhone or iPod Touch.
Out of the thousands of iPhone apps for sale, it's already risen to #62 on the "Top Free Apps (Overall)" list, edging out stalwarts like Google's Free Mobile App, and eBay Mobile. It's #4 out of about 300 apps in the Lifestyle category in the iTunes Store. Clearly, there's a demand for recipes on the iPhone.
Today I was very pleased to see that the BigOven 160,000 Recipe Search App is now available for immediate download in the iTunes Store! It's currently free, and it runs on iPhones and iPod Touches.
To install it, click here to add it to your iTunes library (and then sync to install), or visit the App Store from your iPhone or iPod Touch, and search on "BigOven". Click "Install" and you're all set. (We recommend creating a free BigOven.com account via your desktop computer beforehand if you don't already have one. This is a one-time process, and it lets you build a Favorites and Try Soon list that you can access from anywhere.)
For more information, and a brief demo of the app, see the brief video demo:
As far as I can tell, it's actually the first FREE recipe app being distributed for the iPhone.
It'll be interesting to see the take-up on this. Apple Inc. reported yesterday that there are now more than 12 million iPhones sold, and in addition, this app runs on the iPod Touch.
Unique to the BigOven platform is the ability to post all your recipes and photos to BigOven, then access them from anywhere. Just yesterday I made good use of the app in the grocery store, when I couldn't remember all the ingredients I needed to make Wild Mushroom Risotto. I knew it was on my Favorites list on BigOven.com, so I whipped out my iPhone, tapped on the Heart icon (favorites), and found it right away. Bingo -- got all the ingredients right there. Also noticed a couple recipes on my "Try Soon" Queue, and decided to buy those items as well. No more forgetting stuff at the grocery store!
I've just written my first iPhone app, and submitted it to Apple Inc. for review. (Update as of Weds 10/22/08 -- Apple has approved the actual application, but it isn't live on the iTunes store just yet. due to their extra step of having to approve a contract between the publisher and Apple Inc. Should be another few days.)
BigOven 160,000+ Recipe Search is a free application that lets you search the BigOven.com recipe archive by ingredient, title, or keyword. For instance, you could search on "chicken teriyaki", "fall soup" or "easy blueberry dessert" and get some great search results.
Better still, it you can post your own favorite recipes to the site (free) with any web browser, then simply mark your Favorites and/or build a list of "Try Soon" recipes. Then, when you're at the grocery store, you simply look at your iPhone and you're "unstuck" for dinner. It's that simple.
Here's the brief description that will appear live in the iTunes App Store when it's approved:
Carry your favorite recipes with you to the grocery store!
BigOven 160,000+ Recipe Search gives you free and easy access to a gigantic recipe archive. Post your family favorite recipes and photos free to www.bigoven.com, then access them on your iPhone!
Search recipes by title (ex: “chicken marsala”), keyword (ex: “spicy Chinese main dish”), or simply enter a list of ingredients (ex: “eggs cheese onion”). Also includes the free 1,000+ BigOven Food Dictionary, including buying tips, storage and substitution tips on hundreds of grocery items.
Note: This application is free. We expect to introduce modest advertising in the future to help offset server hosting costs. Happy cooking!
This is separate from the already-available BigOven Recipe Search iPhone Web App, which was a quick-and-easy way to get the recipe archive in front of the millions of iPhone users. That particular application was is just an iPhone-friendly web application, and it is not featured in the iTunes store. (Web applications are not featured in the iTunes store; only native apps are.)
In a few weeks I'll try to summarize the development/distribution process. Hopefully the application will be approved in time for the Thanksgiving holiday season.
Escapia Triples Vacation Rental Software Sales; Third Quarter Continues a Year of Record Results
Innovative New Features Establish EscapiaONE(tm) as the Leading Web-Based Software Platform for Vacation Rental Managers
Last update: 6:00 a.m. EDT Oct. 16, 2008
SEATTLE, WA, Oct 16, 2008 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) -- Escapia, Inc. ( www.escapia.com), the #1 provider of web hosted management and marketing solutions for vacation rental managers, announced another period of record results for the third quarter of 2008 with sales more than tripling over the same period of 2007.
Every quarter of 2008 has seen Escapia's sales double or triple over 2007 with year to date sales more than three times as high as they were through the third quarter of last year. "With each passing month, more vacation rental managers discover the advantages of using the industry's most advanced management and marketing software solution," said Bill Furlong, Escapia's CEO. "There's never been a more critical time for vacation rental agencies to manage their businesses more efficiently and go the extra mile to get more bookings. Escapia makes both possible."
The third quarter also continued the significant innovation and enhancement to the EscapiaONE platform during 2008 with the release of Escapia IntelliRate(TM) advanced rate management. Escapia IntelliRate provides powerful and sophisticated rate management previously available only to major hotels, while dramatically reducing the time it takes to configure and manage rates for vacation rental agencies. As a fully integrated web hosted solution, rates developed using Escapia IntelliRate can be easily managed from one place and displayed across an agency's own web site and online distribution.
"Vacation rental managers are increasingly recognizing that EscapiaONE is the most powerful and effective solution available for managing and marketing their vacation rental agencies. With hundreds of managers using it to run their businesses every day, EscapiaONE has become the most widely used web-based management and marketing solution for vacation rental managers," said John Suzuki, Escapia's Vice President of Sales.
About Escapia
Escapia, Inc., founded in 2000, is leading the Internet revolution in the $18 billion vacation rental industry with a comprehensive Internet business platform and a breakthrough consumer booking service. Escapia empowers professional vacation rental management companies to reach new customers, manage properties and owner relationships, and perform trust-based accounting, housekeeping, maintenance and other mission critical aspects of their businesses. EscapiaONE is a comprehensive platform for vacation rental companies embracing the Internet future of the industry. EscapiaNET is the leading online distribution network for professional vacation rental managers. ClearStay.com is the premier online vacation rental site helping consumers book lodging with vacation rental managers. Seattle-based Escapia can be reached at 1-800-ESCAPIA, info@escapia.com or via the web at www.escapia.com.
Escapia, EscapiaONE, EscapiaNET, ClearStay.com, the Escapia logo and the ClearStay.com logo are trademarks of Escapia, Inc.
All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Out of 295 sites tracked by the Seattle Startup Index, BigOven.com advanced to #14 as a company, and #13 as an individual site as measured by "estimated reach", using a combination of Alexa.com and Compete.com estimates.
I'd be very curious to see a ranking on a revenue or site traffic per employee basis... :-)
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