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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!
