[Grubhub]

Doing a simple search for the word "delivery" turns up pages of hits so there seems to be a ton of people trying to find out who delivers to them around here. It’s interesting that Grubhub.com is rarely posted as a useful resource to find out who delivers.

I think that if Grubhub was a more complete resource it would have been more widely adopted by Chicagoans and especially by foodies online.

To make Grubhub more useful to you, we have decided to open Grubhub’s database and make it possible for anyone to enter new restaurants (in Chicago or the ‘Burbs) through the website. Anyone can now enter all of a restaurant's data, their delivery area, and even upload their menu. We're working on making all of our current data editable also. We dropped the whole pay-for-premium listing idea and are going to support a free wiki-type format. We've got the best geo-search for restaurant delivery but populating the data by selling one ... restaurant ... at ... a ... time ... was simply too slow.

Our original goal was to introduce people to new restaurants that already deliver to them. Hopefully the community can take the site, make the site their own, and push it farther than we were able to.

I’m interested to find out what this group thinks about our switch.

I'd like it better if you would quit spamming this website.

Added comment:

I did not mean to imply that this particular post was spam. I think the OP posted information that some might find useful and is asking a relevant question with his poll, although I doubt that many here want to become writers for his website without pay. My comment had to do with the fact that this poster was spamming several ongoing threads with advertisements for his website without posting any relevant content.

I apologize, I thought this was a forum where people in Chicago talked about restaurants and topics related to eating out. I'm not trying to spam, I think this is an interesting topic that people who enjoy eating from restaurants would like to know about.

If you're regarding previous posts to other threads, each of the 3 were questions specifically asking where they could find out who delivered to their location. My responses were directly on topic and quite useful.

Maloney wrote:To make Grubhub more useful to you, we have decided to open Grubhub’s database and make it possible for anyone to enter new restaurants (in Chicago or the ‘Burbs) through the website. Anyone can now enter all of a restaurant's data, their delivery area, and even upload their menu. We're working on making all of our current data editable also. We dropped the whole pay-for-premium listing idea and are going to support a free wiki-type format. We've got the best geo-search for restaurant delivery but populating the data by selling one ... restaurant ... at ... a ... time ... was simply too slow.

Our original goal was to introduce people to new restaurants that already deliver to them. Hopefully the community can take the site, make the site their own, and push it farther than we were able to.

I’m interested to find out what this group thinks about our switch.

Since you're asking, I do have doubts about the whole Wiki/Wikipedia thing, which I won't go into here in detail. However, I will point out that the idea of asking the users to provide the editorial content at Grubhub or any other directory of information seems misguided. I know I cannot speak for everyone, but the only reason I would go to Grubhub would be because I do not know what restaurants deliver to me. I would therefore be the person least-well suited to provide information about restaurants that deliver -- i.e., the very information I lack. See where this is going? It's like asking schoolchildren to write their own textbooks. On the other hand, the Wiki idea is perfectly suited for busybodies, of which their certainly is a surfeit on the Internet ... so maybe there are scores of folks with deep knowledge about what restaurants deliver to which addresses in Chicago, who have just been waiting for this type of invitation to come out of the woodwork. I guess we'll see.

A question: How much editorial work and fact-checking does Grubhub plan to impose on the site now that it has gone Wiki-style? Obviously you are taking a pretty major risk of tarnishing your own good name if you let bad information, defamatory reviews, or whatnot creep into the content.

Finally, I did go over to the site (something I haven't done for a long time), and I have to say you have done an excellent job cleaning up the looks, making the interface more useful/useable, and adding restaurants and menus. So I wish you good luck.

Realistically users will not fully populate our data so we’re going to getting new restaurants online as before. Hopefully people who use the site to find new restaurants will upload the information about a couple of their old standbys for others to enjoy. That is how we think (or at least hope) this is going to go.

You’re right that the fastest way to lose a user is to have bogus information on the site so we’re actually going to call every restaurant that is posted to confirm the information. We’re still trying to figure out how to maintain accuracy in our data with the editing feature – that’s the main reason we haven’t gone live with that yet.

I'll say this: the new design, with google maps integration, is quite a bit better (if not completely intuitive) than the old one.

As for getting people to insert their own data, it seems unlikely. You could get the data in yourself just by calling the restaurants and asking for their delivery range and a copy of the menu. It wouldn't really be much more effort than validating user input...

It turns out that you guys were right. While we did add a lot of functionality to the website for people to let us know about their favorite places, the data just wasn't coming in quick enough. Since we are also expanding to SF and NY right now, it just didn't make sense from the standpoint that we want comprehensive and accurate data.

So, we just finished calling 45,000 restaurants in NY,SF, and Chicago. Phew. Do you have any idea how boring it is to ask "Hi, do you deliver" 45,000 times? We'll thank VOIP phones for making that an affordable enterprise! The newly revised and updated listings will be on the site by March 1.

We still plan on adding features to involve the community more, such as offering prizes for writing high quality/quanity reviews in the future.

I used GrubHub to order tonight's dinner (from Friendship Chinese). Got exactly what I ordered, within 30 minutes after the order was confirmed, although it was a bit slower than picking up the phone. That is, the process was awkward. Took me a while to realize that the way to enter your next food selection is to click on the menu sections over to the left; I'd prefer an "Add Another Item" button to show up after each item is added to the bill. Plus, the process for sending the order and getting the confirmation was very slow; maybe 5 or 7 minutes. Also, regarding logging on at the beginning of a session, as a return user, is not at all intuitive; why should I have to click on a button labeled "Sign Up" in order to enter my already-existing username and password? Am I missing something, or shouldn't there be a "Returning Member" sign-in button on the opening page? Minor comments; basically a great service, that will only get better if you can get more restaurants to sign onto the online ordering system.

Actually, the order is immediately transmitted but the "confirmation wait" is our site waiting for the restaurant to physically read and acknowledge (or confirm) your order. We built in double & triple checks to make sure the system (or restaurant employees) don’t screw up your orders. Most other online ordering sites just send a fax and hope for the best…

You’re right that this extra security is not obvious and makes our online ordering seem clunky. I’ll take care of that immediately.

Thanks for the info,
Matt

I used Grub Hub recently to order dinner and thought it was a great tool. Took a few minutes to order, but it was WAY faster than digging through a pile of menus. Will definitely use again.

Maloney, I saw that grubhub.com is a finalist at the NVC at UofC tomorrow. I founded/operate a similar site serving a different industry--www.gympost.com. I'd love to share ideas and experiences with you as our business models are basically identical.

Ryan
rmacgreg + AT + ChicagoGSB.edu
202-494-8991