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| 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?
~
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!
Glad to make your list, thanks! One of my favs not listed is Chef Fromager Tia Keenan- twitter handle: @kasekaiserina . Funny, lively, socially relevant cheese news & more.
ReplyDeleteThis is also inspiration to start tweeting more tasting notes- love to hear what you want more of.
Oh, how could I forget @kasekaiserina. Yes, thanks for the reminder!
ReplyDeleteI also like @WICheeseGuru !
ReplyDeletegood post!
ReplyDeleteI have both apps you mentioned and I use both 0% of the time. I am not a fan of either. Yes, much work must be done in this area.
ReplyDeleteI use Twitter and Facebook mostly to stay up to date with cheese and wine, so social media definitely improves my cheese life.
take a look at http://www.milkandhoneybazaar.com/ or on FB
ReplyDeletehttp://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Milk-Honey-Bazaar/51273868897
it's one of the best cheese stores I've found in the US & they ship. They update their FB page with what's new, in stock, et al.
Please take a look at http://cheeseplex.com (actually it will be called cheeseways.com) when it goes live.
ReplyDeleteIt's challenging to find real cheese tweeps since the word is used too frequently for a simple search. We keep a running list (@ http://twitter.com/#!/curdwise/americancheese) and are working on sub-categories, cheesemakers, mongers, etc., but it's mostly a slow process of adding people as they pop up in others' conversations.
ReplyDeleteThe worst is when someone has a great cheese-referencing handle but doesn't tweet anything about cheese whatsoever. Such a letdown!
I love how the background of my iphone is cheese too...
ReplyDeletebut it's robiola due latti instead =]
Maddie, that's awesome!
ReplyDelete