We were informed that Menoo! – brought by Elasitas to Android Developer Conference in March – has released its beta public version for Android and BlackBerry platform. iOS platform will be launched in July. Other than that there will be Windows Phone/Windows Mobile as well. In general, it looks like Tasterous, focusing on Location Based Service, food review. Tasterous has also launched its application for both platforms.
Menoo! was officially released at CommunicAsia in Singapura a few days ago. For restaurant/food stalls entries in Indonesia, Menoo! collaborates with JalanSutra community. As for US entry, Elasitas collaborates with AllMenus.com. Other than that Menoo! also has over 3000 entries in Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand. According to CEO of Elasitas, Calvin Kizana, as quoted in his press release, “The tren is not only to create applications that people like, but to create application that people like AND increase their social interaction.” Menoo is designed to assist users to share their experience in menu/food tasting.
Generally, Menoo! has a quite interesting appearance. Although I must admit it is not as sleek as Tasterous. When first opened, Menoo! presents information relating to your location, even though status indicator continuously states “waiting location”.
Menoo! also provides various information about booth and restaurant, including address and contact number. Moreover it gives Halal badge, for booth that meets halal criteria. I am not sure whether this data has been synchronized with MUI or not.
There are two different terms for each photo, Menoor and Addictood. I am not really sure what it means. My guess is that Menoor! express the first person who upload the photo, while Addictood has a similar function as “likes button” on Facebook.
There is also one interesting feature, Augmented Reality (AR) that is not available yet on BlackBerry. This feature is already supported by several Android mobile phones. This feature allows you to take a picture using phone camera (example menu ) and Menoo! will provide a solid data about the venue, such as address, phone number, etc. Unfortunately I haven’t try this feature yet. If you have already tried this feature, please kindly send me your testimony. For Blackberry users, AR feature will be available for Blackberry 7 only, such as upcoming BlackBerry Bold 9700.
This application is currently in public beta version, which is not “bug free” yet. Any suggestions will be appreciate by developer. So, what do you think about this application compare to other similar one such as Tasterous? You can try and download this application via http://mymenoo.com (for both BlackBerry and Android users).
