Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Tastespotting: Your Opinions Wanted

I'm new to Tastespotting (I know, I know, where have I been?) but I see a lot of familiar food bloggers over there. I realize it's just changed hands (and I did read the recent post and comments on fbs re its disappearance), but I'm wondering what you think about the site, if you see a lot of traffic to your blog from the photos you post there, your experiences, etc.

My main question, though, is this:
How long does it take from when you upload a photo to when it appears?
I did manage to register, and it told me my first photo sucessfully uploaded, but that was several hours ago and there's no sign of it yet. They don't tell you if that's normal. Actually they don't tell you much of anything anywhere. I can't find a Help section, though one was mentioned in Nika's post on fbs last year about Tastespotting.

I also read on her post that the photos need to be cropped to 250x250. Am I just missing the page where it tells you all this stuff? Maybe that's why my photo didn't get published, because it was the wrong size?

It also looks like they've taken down the language regarding all submitted photos becoming public domain.

Your thoughts and help greatly appreciated!

7/1/08 UPDATE:
After I put up this post, I received a very nice email message from Sarah at TasteSpotting which included the following:

we're working on the site, and are heads down trying to get features smoothed out before we do stuff like the About an the FAQs pages (which we are working on right now), etc. :)As for "How long does it take from when you upload a photo to when it appears?" it could take anywhere from RIGHT NOW to up to 24 HOURS. however, as we are getting back up and running, it might actually take a little bit longer, since we have a limited number of people doing everything for the site right now. please be patient with us. :)

you don't HAVE to crop the photo, as there is a cropping tool on the site. however, the cropping tool isn't perfect and because it goes off a formula, it doesn't necessarily leave in the best part of the picture; so, if you want your photo to appear in a particular way, it's best to crop it to a square first (250 x 250) before uploading. we are working on features that will make it easier for the whole submission process anyway :)


In the meantime, I had already resubmitted my photo, this time cropped to 250 x 250 and it was published that same night.

I noticed today that there is now an ABOUT page on TS, and there are FAQ, etc. pages under construction.

I also came across this interview with Sarah which answers a number of questions including why/how submissions are chosen/not chosen, etc.

Then my ever helpful pal Beth (aka kitchenMage) alerted me to this site created by Jean at Notcot, founder of the original TasteSpotting.For the record, I did have quite a few visitors come to my blog via my photo on TasteSpotting.And for those of you who can't get enough food porn, FoodieView (which is a recipe search engine, restaurant guide, publisher of the weekly Recipe Roundups written by food bloggers, etc.) is about to launch "Foodie Views of the Day." You can read a little more about it here.

And thanks to all of you who left helpful comments about your experiences with TasteSpotting and beyond here in this post.

This Post was written by Susan from
Farmgirl Fare

15 comments:

Lydia (The Perfect Pantry) said...

Tastespotting is "juried", so while your photos will upload, they might not be selected to appear on the site. Food Gawker, which was started to fill the gap left when Tastespotting closed down, is essentially the same thing, but much less judgmental, and has some very nice user-friendly features.

cookiecrumb said...

After my last two submissions were rejected (I've had one successfully posted), I decided to forget about trying. Although I still sneak back once in a while to see what's up.
(Do I suck that bad? Boo-hoo.)

Sam said...

Sorry Farmgirl, I don't know the answer to your questions, but I am going to comment anyway because I am very encouraged by the new set of terms and conditions for Tastespotting. Thanks to Sarah?! The new terms:
"Have integrity. You are responsible for your Submissions and the consequences of posting or publishing them. Make sure you have permission to submit a picture, either because you own it, or you have permission to post it. TasteSpotting will remove submissions if it infringes on another's rights. If you are an owner and have an issue with your photos being submitted to this site, please email"
are far more mature than the original terms (which I still happen to have a copy of because they maddened me so immensely).

Excerpt: "*Is there a rule about what i can post?
This isn't normal. There are no rules. Do what you want - but if you piss off others, they can complain. And we reserve the right to delete... THAT SAID - post whatever you want, from wherever you want. This is the place we built so we CAN keep track of all that fun stuff that is circulating the net & anything else we find amusing/intriguing!"

I don't know about the site content and whether or not is now better looking, because I don't use the site, personally, but I am really pleased that at last they are taking copyrights and ownership concerns more seriously. It's what turned me off TS in the first place - their lack of respect and now they seem to have addressed that issue.

Aside: I wonder why none of these style sites use a more friendly aspect ratio. When I take a photograph I take a great deal to frame it just so and cropping it to a square spoils everything - totally ruins my 'golden section' and I love me some golden section...

Anonymous said...

Hi Farmgirl,
The pictures get cropped automatically so as long as they are bigger than 250x250 you will be fine. They are moderated though and not all pictures get selected. Sometimes it takes up to a week for your photos to appear (if they're picked).
I'm not an authority, just speaking from experience. Hope that helps!

Anonymous said...

I used to get photos published on the old Tastespotting, but none of my submissions to the "new" Tastespotting have been published, but I haven't had any trouble getting the same photos published on Food Gawker. I did receive an email from the new Tastespotting saying that the photos had to be 250x250 and I tried doing that, but no luck, so for now I'll just stick to Food Gawker. One of the features that I liked with the old Tastespotting was the ability to preview the post, this way you could change the photo if it didn't fit into the 250x250 format.
As far as traffic goes when I first started posting Tastespotting helped send a lot of traffic, more than I have ever gotten from Food Gawker, but now I get a lot more traffic from Stumble Upon referrals - I'm guessing some stumblers probably come across the posts via Food Gawker and Tastespotting, so it's probably a combination. Hope this helps.

Haalo said...

I'll speak from experience on old tastespotting - a food blogger stole my photo and posted it on tastespotting as their own to pimp out their website. I only found out about it by sheer accident. I immediately contacted tastespotting and they replied within half an hour having deleted the photo and they subsequently (a day or so later) deleted that users account and all the photos they had previously submitted.

I'm actually fairly concerned with Serious Eats version called Photograzing which allows postings that just link back to Flickr accounts and I certainly don't think getting people to click a box saying they have approval is anywhere near good enough.

Julia from Dozen Flours said...

I don't like the new Tastespotting. It's just not the same. It might have to do with the fact that since the new owners have taken over I have had none of my 6 submissions approved. I was so paranoid that I actually wrote to them and asked if I was doing something wrong. They replied back and said to make sure my photos were pre cropped to 250x250. I did that, resubmitted and still nothing. It especially bothers me to see other photos up that have descriptions that make no sense or pictures that aren't that great. I can't help but take it personally.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like we've all had similar experiences with Tastespotting and Foodgawker. There's a third one now as well:
http://photograzing.seriouseats.com/

Anonymous said...

Beautiful blog..Thanks !!

Farmgirl Susan said...

Hi Everybody,
Thanks for all the helpful comments. I really appreciate the feedback and apologize for not replying sooner.

So after I put up this post, I received a very nice email message from Sarah at Tastespotting which included the following:

we're working on the site, and are heads down trying to get features smoothed out before we do stuff like the About an the FAQs pages (which we are working on right now), etc. :)


As for "How long does it take from when you upload a photo to when it appears?" it could take anywhere from RIGHT NOW to up to 24 HOURS. however, as we are getting back up and running, it might actually take a little bit longer, since we have a limited number of people doing everything for the site right now. please be patient with us. :)

you don't HAVE to crop the photo, as there is a cropping tool on the site. however, the cropping tool isn't perfect and because it goes off a formula, it doesn't necessarily leave in the best part of the picture; so, if you want your photo to appear in a particular way, it's best to crop it to a square first (250 x 250) before uploading. we are working on features that will make it easier for the whole submission process anyway :)


In the meantime, I had already resubmitted my photo, this time cropped to 250 x 250 and it was published that same night.

I noticed today that there is now an ABOUT page on TS, and there are FAQ, etc. pages under construction.

I also came across this interview with Sarah which answers a LOT of questions about why submissions are chosen/not chosen, etc.

Then my ever helpful pal Beth (aka kitchenMage) alerted me to this site created by Jean at Notcot, founder of the original TasteSpotting.

For the record, I did have quite a few visitors come to my blog via my photo on TasteSpotting.

And for those of you who can't get enough food porn, FoodieView (which is a recipe search engine, restaurant guide, publisher of the weekly Recipe Roundups written by food bloggers, etc.) is about to launch "Foodie Views of the Day." You can read a little more about it here.

Thanks again for all of your input! : )

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Anonymous said...

I've also had a bunch of photos not get approved on the new Tastespotting (even though when a very kind stranger posted one of my photos on there, with the correct link, it passed), which is a bit disconcerting, since I never had issues being approved on the old Tastespotting, and I was a photo student in college, to boot. (No bad flash photography from me!) I even wrote a note to the new moderator asking why my posts weren't being approved, and I didn't hear back.

So I'm feeling a little insecure about the whole thing. I hadn't heard of Food Gawker, though. I'll give that a shot.

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