"No more backwards thinking. Time for thinking ahead." - Rae & Christian, Wake Up Everybody
Alexia Tsotsis of Techcrunch puts it like this, "When you’re starving you don’t want to read through thousands of Yelp reviews on your phone or download a random PDF from a terrible restaurant website that’s so slow-load it’s indecipherable. You just want to know where a restaurant is, what it has to eat, and whether or not it’s open."
That's why my friend Michelle Jones is building the Menu and Hours app. Michelle has been saving people time and aggravation for as long as I've known her. She's Louisville's premier local blogger and, in my estimation, the city's greatest ambassador. Everything she writes about on Consuming Louisville is about two things -- how can she make Louisville citizens' lives easier and how can she celebrate her home that she loves so much.
I thought about this just yesterday when we were chatting about her monthly twitter reminders of when senior citizens are likely to be dominating the local grocery stores. It's such a small thing right? But for those of us who value our time, knowing to delay our grocery shopping a day or two can save hours. It also saves our older friends the aggravation of hearing young folks sigh and complain because they don't move fast enough for our tastes.
Menu and Hours is that kind of thoughtfulness in a bigger package. Michelle is too kind to say so but, most of the time, restaurant websites are awful. And, review sites are great when you don't know what you want to eat but not so much if you've got specific questions. I was reminded of that this past weekend as I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the whens and whats of restaurants I wanted to eat at all weekend. Just tell me when you're open and what brunch looks like, darnit!
Michelle wants to save me and you time and aggravation with an app that will give us the information we want and none of the extra noise we don't. Those resolving to go on the information diet (like I am) in 2012 should be all about this.
So, I'm putting my money where my mouth is. I believe in the concept and more importantly, I believe in Michelle. She's got about 9 more days to reach her funding goal and is about 2/3rds of the way there. After I push post here, I'm going to update my backing level at kickstarter.
Big ideas and bigger people deserve big support. If you're so inclined, I encourage you to do so as well.
Wake up!
Soundtrack to this post
- Wake Up Everybody by Rae & Christian
- Waves (The Time That You're Awake) by The Elected
- Awake by Lands & Peoples
- Wake Up Africa (J.Period Remix) by J.Period & Nneka
- Wake Up Everybody by John Legend and The Roots
- Wake Me When I'm Dead by The Brand New Heavies
- Wake Up World (Interlude) by J.Period & Nneka
- Wake Up In Another Life by Nicolay
- Trouble Sleep Yanga Wake Am by Taj Mahal, Baaba Maal, Kaouding Cissoko & antibalas