Urbanspoon

Urbanspoon was a restaurant information and recommendation service founded in 2006 by former Jobster employees that offered its services in North America and parts of English-speaking Australasia and Europe. In January 2015, Zomato, an India-based restaurant search and discovery service, acquired Urbanspoon.

The Urbanspoon website and Seattle business operation initially evolved with addition of content team workers for door-to-door data collection of restaurant information, an operational design that had served Zomato well in India. However, Zomato discontinued the Urbanspoon website on June 1, 2015, redirecting Urbanspoon traffic to Zomato servers; at the same time, Urbanspoon's logo was incorporated into a new Zomato logo.

Zomato ceased earlier Urbanspoon app development, leading to departure of all Seattle engineers by August 2015. Mid-October 2015, multiple U.S. Zomato (previously Urbanspoon) offices were closed, including the former corporate headquarters in Seattle. Business reports as of October 2015 indicate either that Zomato-Urbanspoon has ceased all U.S. operations, or that it will retain a couple of sites, including Dallas, the new site of Zomato's U.S. administrative functions.

Urbanspoon was a restaurant information and recommendation service that operated in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It offered services via its website and standard apps for mobile operating systems. In its evolution from an initial and popular iPhone application, UrbanSpoon adapted its appearance and capabilities, including to the Android market. In these and other efforts to develop the product, the results were apps that were aware and competitive with alternative businesses Yelp and Where.

Via its apps and webpage, Urbanspoon offered a restaurant search utility, with filtering by price, type of food, neighborhood, nearby businesses (movie theaters, sports venues, etc.), and special features (gluten-free fare, child-friendliness, BYOB-service, etc.). Users could then participate in the simple "like" or "don’t like" rating system to review restaurants, and share restaurant information with friends via email, Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and Pinterest, and by photo pages. Users who create an account could track dining experiences (menu items, price of meal, and photos), and could create a "Wishlist" to save restaurants for future use and a "Guide" to share personal lists of dining favorites. In addition, the Urbanspoon app featured a "Slot Machine," allowing users to "Spin" (or shake their device) to randomly see a new eating establishment based on neighborhood, cuisine, or price.

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