One of my fave new 'cool finds' online is TwitGrids.com. It's a virtual potluck of Twitter tweets (and more). It keeps me 'in the foodie know' by allowing me to peruse all my fave tweeting foodies, chefs, brands, bloggers and restaurants via its much-more-organized-than-Twitter interface. My craving for insider foodie info: satisfied. My craving to peruse foodie-friendly tweets with minimal effort: satisfied. Check this out...
This morning I heard from @GDeLaurentiis about how she spent her Thanksgiving, checked out a twitpic from @Sarma featuring a rainbow of her yummy juices on sale at One Lucky Duck's new Chelsea Market NYC outpost, heard from @BFlay, that 'the men's team lost' at his Thanksgiving Trivial Pursuit showdown, learned about the latest in vegan shoes from @GreenbyDesign, heard about a new Winter Ale Sangria offering at @Cafeterianyc and I even checked out a recipe for Easy Baked Tofu from @WholeRecipes, aka Whole Foods Market. And all this mouthwatering foodie/green girl goodness fit on my one webpage-of-a-plate. Delicious.
What's my secret? TwitGrids. Here is what it looks like:
Not Hungry, for food? OK, so sometimes I'm not thinking about food. Sometimes. And in that case, I still have a whole plethora of different tweet topics to peruse. Twitgrids has categories like lifestyle, health news, celebs, sports, style, TV, funny, politics, news, travel, entertainment, green, fitness and more. There are over 1,800 accounts featured on TG's-and they are always adding boxes to their grid categories. I definitely peruse TG's for more than just foodie stuff. But if it's foodie tweets you crave, you're in luck, a Vegas-sized buffet of yummy tweets awaits...
Foodie Categories at TwitGrids. There is a main category called simply "food" and under that comes foodies, chefs, recipes, restaurants and brands.
I was super excited to see my @Lunchboxbunch account featured in the "foodies" and "recipes" sections of TwitGrids. Plus there are tons of my other fave twitter accounts listed there too.
There is also a "green" category under "lifestyle" which I love. There you'll find tweets from my faves: @DiscerningBrute, @RoryFreedman, @PlanetGreen, @Ecorazzi, @GirlieGirlArmy, @Moby, @sroakes and more.
Under "chefs" you'll find tweets from @veggiechefmayra, @jamie_oliver, @bflay, @rick_bayless, @classicerin, @sarma and more.
Under "recipes" you'll find tweets from @wholerecipes, @veganrecipes, @winerecipes and more.
Under the "foodies" category you'll find tweets from @tastespotting, @foodnetwork, @everydayfood, @lunchboxbunch (moi) and more.
Under "restaurants" you'll find tweets from @purefoodandwine, @babycakesnyc, @chipotlemedia, @lepainquotidien, @thecoffeebean and more.
And finally, under "brands" you'll find tweets from @Starbucks, @WholeFoods, @onecoconut, @honesttea, @peets_tweets and more.
TwitGrids Features Include:
*Easy Login: Login on TwitGrids with your Twitter account. On the TG site you can follow, unfollow, update your status, check your latest stats, @reply and retweet (and even add your own comments to your RT, something twitter's new RT button doesn't allow.)
*EasyScroll: If you have a mouse that allows it, you can easily scroll through tweets with the roll of your mouse wheel. I love this feature. It's fun in a cyber-nerdy kind of way. The tweets scroll from latest to oldest tweet.
*Sort Categories: TG lets you sort how you view your grid categories. You can view profiles in order of most followed, latest tweet or alphabetically. I use this feature all the time to find specific people alphabetically or to see the very latest tweets in the category I am looking at.
*Trends Page: The trends page allows you to scroll through all the latest twitter tweets of today's trends. Constant updates for inquiring minds who want to listen in on the twitter conversation.
*MyGrid: MyGrid is a way to customize your very own page of favorite tweeters. Once you're logged in, simply click the little +My button on a gridbox, and that account will be added to your "MyGrid". The main bummer is that TG's doesn't let you add your personal faves like friends and family yet. For now you can add anyone currently found on TwitGrids - which is a lot of options, over 1800 and growing. MyGrid is great because it allows you to see only the tweets you want to see from various categories all on one screen. It's similar to Twitter's new lists feature. If you are a visual person like me you may like it better than lists.
The Grid is In. Like I said, I love Twitter, but who has time to scroll through lines and lines of text of your fave foodies, chefs, brands and restaurants? Not me. Lines are out, grids are in. TwitGrids uses a minimalist innovative grid style display. No more endless scrolling required.
The Down Side: The only down side to TwitGrids is that they may not have everyone who you'd like to see in their database - yet. They continually add more accounts and you can even tweet them suggestions to add. If your fave foodie blogger, chef or recipe tweeter isn't listed, simply tweet @twitgrids and maybe they will add your suggestion.
My "Cool Finds" review of TwitGrids, for those of you who missed it last week...:
Hello my name is Kathy and I'm addicted to twitter. Yup, I love twitter.com, but sometimes it feels like a sea of tweets with no true organization or ease of use. Ten minutes on twitter can quickly become an hour. So when I found TwitGrids.com my face got very smiley. It's like a sort of newspaper - with little grid boxes of tweets. All categorized. For an organization freak like me- it's dreamy. Plus it has plenty of "foodie-friendly" categories: lifestyle, green, food, foodies, chefs, recipes, brands and restaurants sections. You can even customize your own "My Grid". Hello my name is Kathy and I'm addicted to TwitGrids. To have your twitter (and eat it too?) - try this website.
More info at www.twitgrids.com
Twitter Account: @TwitGrids
