On March 11, 2010, local entrepreneur Dr. David Nadeau launched InfoGlutton to meet the growing need of managing a restaurant's online reputation.

InfoGlutton

InfoGlutton on Ottawa's Atelier Restaurant
According to its press release, its website (and blog), and an abstract of a key note Dr. Nadeau delivered at the NRC (National Research Council), InfoGlutton is an online service (monthly subscriptions) that lowers the complexity of determining what people are saying about a restaurant, be it positive, neutral, or negative. It provides a point in time determination of what is expressed by people on restaurant review websites and various forums. This determination can be used to adjust a restaurant's online presence to be more effective and contain malicious comments.

According to an interview by Ottawa Start, which provided the inspiration for the following five question interview, InfoGlutton leverages reviews and comments from 10best.com, chow.com, dine.com, dinehere.ca, dingdining.com, fodors.com, foodpages.ca,happycow.com, hihenry.com, hungrytable.com, lonelyplanet.com, menuism.com, opentable.com, ottawafoodies.com, praized.com, restaurantica.com, restaurantsource.ca, restaurantthing.com, reviewblue.com, specialstoday.ca, townrenowned.com, tripadvisor.com, trustedopinion.com, urbanspoon.com, yahoo.com, and yelp.ca for its Ottawa restaurant offering.

Graciously, Dr. Nadeau answered some of our questions by e-mail:
1. In 5 seconds or less, how was InfoGlutton conceived?

InfoGlutton was conceived keeping in mind our goal is to help restaurateurs keep up with democratization of food critiquing.

2. What sources of information does InfoGlutton use? I notice the majority of quoted comments seem to be taken from forums. Does InfoGlutton look through food blogs as well? FaceBook?

We started with the monitoring of restaurant directories/forums because the volume of reviews is high and these sources systematically top Google results (very high visibility). We monitor awards through our site dingdining.com, we are testing Twitter/Facebook integration with some restaurants right now, and we'll add food blogs soon!

3. How do you feel social media has changed the restaurant industry?

Social media makes our influence network larger and very talkative. People are more and more likely to choose a restaurant based on their personal network word-of-mouth rather than a TV ad, newspaper column or Yellow Pages directory.

4. It seems more difficult now to determine how people perceive a restaurant. How does InfoGlutton provide a solution? How can restaurants use InfoGlutton to manage online sentiment?

InfoGlutton allows listening, recording and classifying guest feedback. Some actions can then be performed: from removing malicious negative comments to improving visibility of positive messages on search engines.

5. Tell us a little about yourself. What is your favourite food? Where do you like to eat?

A classic at home: buy pizza dough at local pizzeria or fresh market, use tomato paste + water + basil & oregano for sauce, use best cheese money can buy and top with something different each time.



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