Feed My Guests

Feed My Guests recommended on www.ivanhoe.com

2009-12-14T08:43:00.001Z

Our Facebook application gets a recommendation as one of 4 top tools to help you keep in tip-top shape. Read more at:

http://www.ivanhoe.com/smartwoman/p_swstory.cfm?storyid=22927

Feed My Guests recommended in SELF magazine

2009-10-13T15:40:00.004+01:00

Aha, I've finally got my own copy of April's SELF magazine which has a lovely mention for our Facebook application. They've recommended it for planning healthful (sic) dinner parties for dinner guests with allergies or aversions.

It feels like it has been an epic journey trying to get hold of a copy of this magazine. Which is popular in the States but not published over here in the UK. One of our Facebook Fans kindly informed us about the existence of the article, but they'd already got rid of their copy of the magazine. Eventually I thought of contacting a distant cousin in Washington DC. He fetched a copy of the magazine and read out the content over the phone (Thank you Phil). Then he was going to put the actual mag in the post, but moved house at the same time and the mag ended up packed away. My uncle and aunt then visited him from the UK and brought the magazine back with them. Then it was delayed by postal strikes and eventually got to me. Hooray!

Here is a scan of the article:

Ever upwards - more users and fans

2009-08-10T09:36:00.001+01:00

Great news, we've now got more than 800 users of Feed My Guests and we're up to 70 fans!

Discount tickets for Foodies Festival

2009-04-30T11:34:00.005+01:00

As people with an inate interest in food and drink, I want to let you know about the Foodies Festival that is happening as part of the Brighton Festival Fringe from 10am to 6pm on May 16th and 17th.

You can learn how to cook something in one of the masterclasses, watch a different local chef cook live each hour and shop amongst the speciality producers stands. Local chefs involved include Momma Cherri, Michael Bremner from Due South, Andrew Mackenzie from Drakes, Rob Car from Hotel du Vin, Sam Metcalfe of Seven Dials and more.

I've even organised a special discount for the event, tickets are normally £6 each but just ask for the 3 for 2 tickets offer when you call seetickets on 0871 230 7144 to get 3 for the price of 2!

If you come along on the 16th I might even see you as I'll be in town celebrating my birthday and plan to come along to the Foodies Festival too :-)

Great news, now more than 50 fans!

2009-04-17T08:24:00.001+01:00

It's good to be loved. We'll see which of the features from our development list we can add to the app soon. Love you fans back :-)

Woohoo - More than 500 users and 40 fans!

2009-04-02T09:55:00.002+01:00

Since we got a positive mention in April's SELF Magazine in the USA, our user numbers (which generally tick up slowly but surely) have positively shot up. We zoomed well past 500 users over just two days when the magazine hit the streets. More importantly to me, many of our new users like the Feed My Guests app so much they've become facebook fans of it too! Fantastic :-)

Moving Servers - cost saving

2009-01-27T10:35:00.002Z

Just a quick note to say that we are moving the hosting of the Feed My Guests application to new servers over the next couple of days. This is a cost cutting exercise. Whilst there shouldn't be any interruption to our service (according to the tests we've run), just in case there are any I apologise now.

Application improved and updated

2008-09-09T10:53:00.001+01:00

We've recently improved our Feed My Guests Facebook Application. It is now much nicer to look at and much nicer to use. Please give it a go and let me know what you like and don't like about it. Thank you.

Feed Me Don't Kill Me - Merchandise Now Available

2008-08-07T11:54:00.002+01:00

We've had many requests for our lovely t-shirts and aprons. I'm now very pleased to announce that we have launched our web shop, with the Feed Me Don't Kill Me t-shirts and aprons available to purchase!

Please visit: http://www.feedmyguests.com/fmgshoptshirts.html for t-shirts
and http://www.feedmyguests.com/fmgshopaprons.html for aprons.

Cloud Hosting at Microsoft Internet Architect Conference 2008

2008-05-12T15:51:00.005+01:00

Feed My Guests' Technical Architect Joel Jeffery presented a session on Software plus Services at the Microsoft Architect Insight Conference 2008 a couple of weeks ago. He cunningly asked to use Feed My Guests as his case study, and I agreed to talk a bit about the technology we've chosen and use for our Facebook Application.

The PowerPoint slides from Joel's presentation are available to view here and the video of the talk is edited and chopped into 10-minute segments as a YouTube play list here.

Insightful stuff :-)

You can jump straight to my section of the talk here.

In it I talk about the technologies we looked at for Feed My Guests, and then which ones we chose to use and why we chose them.

Snippet in May's Wave Magazine

2008-04-22T11:55:00.005+01:00

I'm really pleased that we've got a mention in May's Wave Magazine (http://www.wavemagazine.co.uk/). Every little bit of getting the word out there helps!

To see the article in situ, click here: http://www.feedmyguests.com/images/wave magazine article 220408.jpg

Now you can avoid brands

2008-04-17T11:46:00.002+01:00

We've added a new Brands section to our ingredients to avoid list. Until now you've had to say which specific ingredients you needed to avoid (e.g. an additive like Sunset Yellow) but now you can flag up a branded product (say Kia Ora Orange Squash for instance) and make it easier for your dinner hosts to know exactly what to avoid. We haven't put many brands in to the list yet. If there are any you particularly want to avoid then please email feedback@feedmyguests.com with your request.

What a fantastic launch party!

2008-03-19T17:15:00.002Z

Thank you to everybody who turned up and made it such a great party. I hope all of you that tried the chilli chocolates have now recovered :-)

Our total number of Feed My Guests users went up by over 10% overnight!

If you're interested there are some fabulous pictures of the event (taken by Jon Silver of www.southdownstudio.co.uk/) available in my Facebook photos here (you don't need to be a facebook user to see them):

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=31662&l=b16c1&id=571106845
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=31663&l=5043d&id=571106845
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=31664&l=132c7&id=571106845

That's a lot of pictures I know, but I already whittled the numbers down from nearly 500 to only 140 or so, there were just too many good photos.

First article published in the press!

2008-03-12T10:58:00.002Z

I'm delighted to say we got a mention in yesterday's The Argus for our launch party. You can click here to see a scan of the page: Argus Article 11th March 2008.

Feed My Guests invite you to our launch party

2008-03-08T11:16:00.009Z

If you have an interest in food and in what we're doing at Feed My Guests then I invite you and a guest to join us and celebrate the launch of Feed My Guests, our new service that makes it easier and more fun to have guests round to dinner.

The evening’s entertainment will include a wine tasting, a raffle with prizes including a hamper of food and a fabulous cake, a selection of safe to eat (vegetarian, vegan, gluten free) food treats, a goody bag to take away and a chance to find out more about Feed My Guests…

When: Tuesday, 18th March 2008 at: 8.30pm to 11pm
Where: The Sanctuary Underground Bar and Venue51-55 Brunswick Street East, Hove, BN3 1AU www.sanctuarycafe.co.uk

Please RSVP to launch@feedmyguests.com or call Dörte Januszewski on 01273 470 464.

With special thanks to our launch sponsors:
Sanctuary Café & Venue - http://www.sanctuarycafe.co.uk/
Johnson’s Dietary Provisions Ltd. - http://www.johnsonsprovisions.co.uk/
Sussex & The City – ‘Food Miles Better’ - http://www.sussexandthecity.co.uk/
Let Them Eat Cake - http://www.letthemeatcake.gb.com/
Jon Silver Photography - http://www.southdownstudio.co.uk/
Ian Smith Design - isdesign@btinternet.com

Feed My Guests now 'Application Approved' in Facebook

2008-02-28T09:10:00.003Z

I'm pleased to report that our Feed My Guests application is now 'Application Approved' by Facebook and therefore shows up in the Application Directory and is visible to all Facebook users!

You can find us in the Food & Drink or Events categories, or simply do a search for Feed My Guests to find us easily.

You can of course see and add our application directly from here:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=7969959755&b&ref=pd

Feed My Guests does not yet appear in the list of Facebook applications

2008-02-18T17:10:00.002Z

Just to let you know that our application Feed My Guests does not yet show up in Facebook's application directory. We submitted it yesterday, and it is currently Pending Approval before it will show up in the application directory. I'll let you know here when it is Approved.

Soft launch of Feed My Guests today!

2008-02-18T14:22:00.003Z

I'm pleased to say we've soft launched our Feed My Guests application for the Facebook Platform today.

This means that it now available to add to your Facebook profile and start using it. We will officially launch the app with a nice party in a few weeks time.

If you have a Facebook account and want to start using Feed My Guests then log into Facebook and then visit http://apps.facebook.com/feedmyguests/ to add our app.

Please do let me know how you get on. Comment on this blog or email us at feedback@feedmyguests.com.

Looking for a Launch Sponsor

2008-02-12T15:22:00.000Z

We are now looking for a company to sponsor our Launch and get their name positively associated with our brand right from the get-go. Please contact me on 01273 358020 if you're interested.

Thank you,

Pete

We've been working flat out!

2008-02-12T15:20:00.000Z

We've been working flat out to implement some of the excellent new features (and fix a few bugs) reported to us by our test users. We are now confident we can soft launch our application in a week's time and expect it to provide a great user experience. Many thanks to our test users!

User Testing begins - exciting times

2008-02-04T16:01:00.000Z

So today we've invited our first users to test our new application (for the Facebook Platform) and give us their feedback, warts and all! I've already received some really useful feedback on ingredients we've missed from our lists.

Facebook Application Prototype nearly ready for testing

2008-01-24T15:49:00.000Z

Since Xmas we've been working on an application for the Facebook Platform to help people dine together and I'm very excited because the prototype is looking great. It is nearly ready for user testing (another week or so), a couple of weeks of that and hopefully we can then release it to help the world.

Why have I started Feed My Guests?

2008-01-03T16:45:00.000Z

Many people now have food issues of one sort or another. They may have an allergy or intolerance to certain foods; follow a particular diet (GI/Atkins); be environmentally aware (food miles/GM/organic); or just be plain fussy about what they eat. This makes it much harder for people to invite other people to dinner: Too much hassle to work out what to feed them? Too many different food issues to cope with at one dinner party? Or worse, might I accidentally harm them or even kill them?

I've started Feed My Guests in order to find ways to help more people dine together more often & more easily.