Cheese and Social Media

Madame Fromage's iphone

For the last three days, I have been holed up at the Poynter Institute in Florida, studying media trends. I can tell you a lot about Twitter demographics and cool projects at NPR (imagine a Pandora for news), but the question that came to mind as I flew home from Saint Petersburg last night was this:

How has social media affected cheese?

Three years ago when I started blogging, Twitter was still an infant, and the iphone had just been born. Here’s the scene today:

Cheese Apps: Through iphones and ipads, we can access scores of cheese-related apps, from beer-and-wine pairing guides to something called Dairy Ping, which allows users to pick up a jug of milk and locate the farm that produced it, along with sanitation information. Two apps stand out:

Fromage ($2.99) by Steve Welch offers descriptions of 750 cheeses and a function that allows you to keep notes on each one. One drawback: the design is lackluster and there is a lot of scrolling to be done.

Cheese Plate ($2.99) by Chronicle Books is essentially a Janet Fletcher hardcover in app form. The photos are gorgeous, and you can pull up a dozen or so cheese plates by theme, then tap the cheeses to learn more info. Pairing notes, however, are very limited. 

What I’d like to see: regional cheese apps with interactive cheese maps that would guide users to local cheesemakers and cheese counters.

Cheese Tweets: Twitter is alive with cheesemongers, bloggers, and lobbying groups. Here are the folks leading active social media campaigns:

Beecher’s (@BeechersNY, @BeechersSeattle)

Culture Magazine (@culturecheese)

Wisconsin Cheese (@WisconsinCheese)

Blogger Kristen Jackson (@ItsBrieBlog)

Bloggers CheeseandChampagne (@curdwise)

Cheesemonger Tim Gaddis of Star Provisions (@TimTheCheeseMan)

InvestinCheese (@investincheese) delivers daily links and top stories.

What I’d like to see: more news from behind the counter. What cheeses are in stock? What cheeses are in season? Why don’t more cheese counters tweet tasting notes?

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Feeling lost? Don't panic. Over the next few weeks, I'll try to post more about this phenomenon. Until then, here is your assignment: check out some apps, stalk a monger on Twitter, and let me know if you think social media improves your cheese life. For a quick glimpse of cheese talk on Twitter, check out Trendistic. Surely, we can do better than this!