Dinner Spinner Pro

Allrecipes.com has hit the nail on the head with their new launch of a premium version of their free mobile app. The free version has 2.8 million subscribers (myself included as an avid fan!) and already has a great interface that allows access to 40,000+ recipes, as well as cooking tips. This newest version, Dinner Spinner Pro, clearly listened to what their consumers wanted as the app now allows users to save recipes, integrate grocery lists across recipes and interact, in several ways, with fellow cooks.

For three key reasons, I find this launch to be both highly interesting, and extremely timely. The first is the increased ability focus on user-generated content. Not only does this premium version allow for rating and sharing recipes -- but it also allows for mobile upload of photos of these recipes. As AllRecipes has over 50 million unique vistors annually, many from international locations, and, as such, is viewed as a focused social networking site as well as a recipe depot -- this new mobile functionality should really continue to increase user interaction. Secondly, this platform seems like it will, at some point, be ripe for interesting monetization opportunities. I can imagine a variety of different scenarios -- restaurants able to advertise based on cuisine preferences in recipe searches, grocery stores able to build in locations/deals/store layouts and, potentially even cooking-based retailers (eg, Williams-Sonoma) able to target chefs/bakers based on their AllRecipe behavior. Finally, this launch jives perfectly with the iPad. One in five cooks brings their laptop into the kitchen to follow a recipe (mobile phones are often too small for this purpose) -- but this poses a major risk of spilling and damaging the computer. The iPad, with its optional protective covers and display set-ups, will be the perfect device to pair with this app -- both in the grocery store and, once at home, in the kitchen.