Finishing up week 8 (almost done, folks!) with step #19 I need to choose an award winning Web 2.0 website or an honorable mention. So, I chose one close to my heart and by heart I mean my stomach. toEat.com is a mapping browser that received an honorable mention in the category of Mapping. It allows users to find restaurants by either with the map or search by name, description, or keyword. You can search "what is around" a city, state, or zip code as well.
Tags (don't get me started) and ratings are available, although all of the areas I searched had no ratings listed. Interestingly, although toEat.com offers a restaurant's address and phone number, there are no links for the restaurant's website. Also, there is not the option to sort by type or rating, but you can limit your search by clicking on a descriptive tag.
toEat.com explains that if there are too many restaurants in one area to show on the map as a caricature, they will replace the caricature with a magnifying glass. Unfortunately, there is not enough room on the homepage to simply click on the state since there are magnifying glasses everywhere. Also, the map is a little small, making it difficult to click on those small east coast states.
Another problem I found is in the navigation. There is no easy way to go back to a previous window without using the browser's Back button. Also, the screen changes in an abrupt manner: all of the restaurants are shown as a list for a moment before the screen changes and now everything is in a list.
It is not clear where toEat.com is getting their information, since recent restaurants are not shown and not all locations for franchises like McDonald's will appear on the map.
I will probably use this site in the future especially when someone asks me what is in the area, but it would be nice to have more information such as hours, menus, or at least a website address where I can get more information.
Now, if you would excuse me, I'm getting hungry.
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