Another wonderful example of Social Media blending with hard copy is the evolution of Food52, a crowd-sourced social-media recipe/food site started by Amanda Hesser (of NY Times fame) and Merrill Stubbs freelance food-writer and recipe-tester. This site invites viewers to submit recipes — themed each week, for a contest. Amanda and Merrill test each recipe, come up with 2 finalists, and the readers will decide the winner. At the end of 52 weeks, the winning entries will be entered into a cookbook (hard copy — ink and paper!) that will be published by The HarperStudio. In the meantime, the cooks, readers, and contributors get to share recipes, chat with each other, add additional content on related issues (ingredients, cooking tools, cookbooks etc) in an ongoing collaboration. I was lucky enough to get an interview with Amanda and Merrill in between their frantic bouts of cooking. Click below and find out why Merrill’s mother is NOT, NOT, NOT allowed to submit recipes….
So at the end, there is a hard-copy cookbook that will have had a full year’s worth of preliminary buzz. The Food52 team is busily tweeting, uploading videos to Vimeo, linking to other food blogs. It’s a win-win for the publisher, the reader/contributor, and the Food52 team of Merrill and Amanda. Food 52 Intro from Food52 on Vimeo.
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