Diningverse Blog

Welcome designers and marketers!

Diningverse — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 14:32:37 +0000

Plenty independent restaurant owners are already using Diningverse as a better and more affordable way to maintain their restaurant website. It includes everything they need to create and manage their online presence. Awesome menu editor, D’Scoop to promote their restaurant on Diningverse and social media, full mobile website, interactive design editor and more.

However, it became increasingly clear that most of the time the independents rely on local designers and marketers to manage their local advertising, couponing, marketing and in majority cases their online presence and social media engagement.

We at Diningverse took notice and decided to make it easier for local designers and marketers to create and manage websites for local independently owned restaurants. It’s super simple to sign-up for a Restaurant Manager account, add their own branding and start building ‘Diningverse powered’ restaurant websites for their customers. To make sure that they will profit, we lowered the monthly price from $79 to $29 per month (per restaurant).

Designers and marketers can now incorporate Diningverse into their offering, mark-up the monthly fee and prosper. All while helping independent local restaurants compete online with franchises and chains.

The 2 main features that make all this possible are re-branding of the Restaurant Editor and a limited client account the designers can create for their customers.

Designers can now use Diningverse as a true platform for building and maintaining websites for independent local restaurants. The first step is to add their own logo and make the Diningverse Restaurant Editor theirs. We removed all the Diningverse branding so that their restaurant customers are clear who provides the service to them… their local designer.

Additionally, designers can create a limited access account for their restaurant customer. They can brand the sign-in screen that is accessible through the ‘Diningverse powered’ website. The restaurant owner, manager or a member of the restaurant staff can maintain the content of the site. But they are not able to access the design editor and some other settings screens. These remain in the designer’s control.

All the features are listed on the following page where the designers can also create their account: http://diningverse.com/shine

We are looking forward so much to working with designers and marketers. Feedback and additional ideas to improve Diningverse are welcome.

Study: Social Media-Savvy Consumers Dine Out More

Diningverse — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 14:30:48 +0000

Here is an interesting article that patrons that use social media, apps, and check restaurant websites regularly dine out more and are more likely to become a repeat customer.

On the whole, 30% of social media-savvy individuals either posted or read reviews on Yelp, while only 27% of connected adults did. Additionally, 29% of social media-savvy adults have checked out a restaurant’s fan sites and pages on sites like Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. Twitter is not a frequent destination even for the tech-obsessed – unless there’s a fun gimmick behind the food product, such as a food-truck – one example of that is FindLaFoodTrucks.com, a site that aggregates LA food trucks’ Twitter feeds or street-food vendors who use Twitter.

The good news? This study predicts that restaurants will start using more social media in the next two years.

Here is the rest of the article. Enjoy!

Track visits on your mobile website

Diningverse — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 13:28:05 +0000

Last week we brought you the very ‘mobileicious’ Mobile versions of Diningverse restaurant websites. Immediately, we wanted you to know the impact of this awesome feature so now you can see how many visits you get on your mobile website.

We added the mobile pageviews to the previous stats and you can see them when you visit your Diningverse restaurant Dashboard. It’s obvious that this is going to have significant impact on understanding how your customers find you and how they explore the information on your website.

To find out more about Diningverse restaurant websites visit our Tasty Page and create your free account to test it out.

Diningverse now more Mobileicious

Diningverse — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 17:18:00 +0000

Dininverse restaurant websites have been always smartphone friendly. The original design allowed for good scaling and showing the content in a very usable way.

Today we’re proud to announce a brand new mobile version of Diningverse restaurant websites. Very user friendly and designed from the ground up for smartphones and touch-screen devices.

The mobile websites are 100% automatic. When you create or update your traditional Diningverse restaurant website the mobile version is also updated. You don’t have to do a thing.

To keep the user experience streamlined, some content has been simplified to give the mobile user what they need.

Here are a few screenshots of what it looks like: Home Page, About the Restaurant, Opening Hours.

However, don’t think that the mobile version of Diningverse restaurant websites is skimping on any of the important information. All the menus, menu sections and menu items are included in a sleek way. The Contact tab includes the most important info on how to contact the restaurant with a map and a one-click option to get the directions.

A few more screenshots: Menus, Menu Details, Contact.

Although the mobile version of Diningverse restaurant websites is quite complete, we’re planning to add a few other nifty features and additional content in the near future. We’ll post more info about that on our blog.

Try checking out these restaurants on your mobile phone:

McGarrey’s Oakwood Cafe → http://diningverse.com/m/mcgarreysoakwood
Matthew’s Trattoria → http://diningverse.com/m/matthewstrattoria
Summer House Cafe → http://diningverse.com/m/summerhousecafe
Franco’s Cafe → http://diningverse.com/m/francoscafe

Let us know what you think.

To find out more about Diningverse restaurant websites visit our Tasty Page and create your free account to test it out.

The Real Cost of Social Media

Diningverse — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 15:37:18 +0000

I recently came across of an interesting article about The Real Cost of Social Media. It summarizes nicely the true cost of trying to jump on the ‘social media bandwagon’ without understanding the hidden (and sometimes not so hidden) costs of doing so.

Managing Facebook page and Twitter account, replying to all your friends and followers is incredibly time consuming and in many cases independent restaurant owners can and should use their time more wisely.

Thankfully, if a restaurant already has a Facebook page and Twitter account, they can just power both through Diningverse social integration. Also, it is a snap to add an always-up-to-date menu to a Facebook page with a couple of clicks.

Diningverse even more social now

Diningverse — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 17:11:27 +0000

The frequently requested and long awaited social media integration is now available in Diningverse restaurant editor. It is seamlessly integrated within your account. First, connect your Facebook and/or Twitter accounts under the Social Integration tab within Settings.

Then, before you post your new D’Scoop update, simply check the checkbox next to the social media account where you’d like to have it automatically reposted.

That’s it. Your D’Scoop update will be now automatically reposted on your Facebook and/or Twitter account.

To find out more about Diningverse restaurant websites visit our Tasty Page and create your free account to test it out.

An easier way to show/hide your menu items

Diningverse — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 14:00:47 +0000

Quite a few of our customers found it not so clear (and some downright confusing) to hide and show their menus, menu sections and individual menu items. So we decided to make it quite a bit more obvious to decide which elements are on and which are off.

Introducing the brand new ON/OFF slider with an immediate feedback that allows you to put your items on the menu and equally easily take them off.

It’s incredibly convenient now to “turn menu items on/off” which will hide them from the menu. You no longer need to visit the menu item details screen just to take it off the menu. Simply click the on/off slider and the menu item is immediately hidden on your Diningverse menu (and also on your Facebook menu).

The on/off slider is also available to hide entire menu sections or even whole menus from your Diningverse website.

To find out more about Diningverse restaurant websites visit our Tasty Page and create your free account to test it out.

Post your menu on Facebook

Diningverse — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 11:34:16 +0000

More and more restaurants are starting to use Facebook to enhance their interaction with customers. Diningverse now let’s you put your menu on Facebook and keep it automatically updated whenever you make any changes to it within your Diningverse restaurant editor.

Watch this short video to see how incredibly easy it is to set this up.

Follow these simple instructions to add your menu to Facebook.

You can add your menu created and maintained on Diningverse thanks to OpenMenu, a new standard to store and distribute restaurant information (including full menus) on the Internet.

Login to your Facebook Account that you use to maintain your restaurant’s Facebook page
Follow this link http://facebook.com/apps/… to add the OpenMenu Tab application to your page
Click the Add to my page link on the left side navigation
Select your Restaurant Facebook page and click the Add to Page button
Go to your restaurant’s Facebook page and refresh the page
Click the Menu link in the side navigation
Click the Edit Settings button on the top right part of the content area
Switch to your Diningverse restaurant editor and go to the SETTINGS tab, OpenMenu sub-tab
Copy the OpenMenu Format menu link
Switch back to your Facebook page
Paste the OpenMenu Format menu link to OpenMenu Tab Settings ‘Location’ textbox
Adjust the additional settings if desired
Click the Save button
Reload the page, your menu will now appear on your Facebook page

To find out more about Diningverse restaurant websites visit our Tasty Page and create your free account to test it out.

Cee and Ellen Colao bet on Diningverse

Diningverse — Mon, 16 May 2011 15:00:22 +0000

We are very fortunate to have some of the best independent local restaurants as our customers. Recently we asked a few of them to share their thoughts about Diningverse and record them as sort of video testimonials.

It was a great experience and I think that the videos came out pretty well. Hope you feel the same way. So, here is Severio (Cee) Colao and his wife Ellen Colao from Colao’s Italian Ristorante.

Our special thanks goes to Mike Berlin and Erika Dauber who filmed and edited the videos.

Stay tuned for more videos and share your thoughts on the video testimonials.

Lorie Pustelak is a huge fan of Diningverse

Diningverse — Mon, 09 May 2011 15:00:51 +0000

It was a great experience and I think that the videos came out pretty well. Hope you feel the same way. So, here is Lorie Pustelak, an owner of Lorie’s Wildridge Restaurant.

Our special thanks goes to Mike Berlin and Erika Dauber who filmed and edited the videos.

Stay tuned for more videos and share your thoughts on the video testimonials.