July 24, 2006
Authors connect with their readers on Roadfood.com
By Robert Niles
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And if we've learned anything about Web publishing over the past decade, it's that readers who share a common interest, no matter how seemingly obscure, will find each other. Authors Michael and Jane Stern ("Roadfood," "Two for the Road: Our Love Affair with American Food") have provided the online meeting place for the nation's diner lovers at Roadfood.com, which has grown to attract about 250,000 unique visits a month since its 2000 launch. Michael Stern, along with Roadfood.com webmaster Stephen Rushmore, recently answered questions about their website via e-mail for OJR.
OJR: When and why did you start Roadfood.com?
Stern: It started in 2000 as the idea of Stephen Rushmore and Stephen Rushmore, Jr. They had been Roadfood users for a long time and Stephen knows how to create a web site.
Rushmore: I had been a huge fan of the Sterns' books for many years and thought it would be a fun project to create a website so their content can be updated more frequently. At the time I was an engineer for a major technology company, and was looking for an interesting portfolio piece to set myself apart from the thousands of other aspiring web developers. After conceptualizing the idea I contacted Michael, sent a business plan, and then met for dinner to test the relationship. It has been a win-win for both of us.
OJR: What can a website, like Roadfood.com, do for an author? Should all authors have websites like this?
Stern: The best thing Roadfood.com does for us is to put us in close contact with readers. We learn of new restaurants all the time. We learn of places that have changed. We get different opinions and suggestions in quantities exponentially larger than pre-website days.
OJR: How much of your time do you spend each week on the website? How does that compare with time you spend on other media, such as books and TV?
Stern: It's hard for me to say, since the time I spend on the web site is kind of like the time a person might spend fishing or reading. I browse around and add material throughout the day as inspiration strikes. I would guess it adds up to a couple or three hours a day, on average. When we are focused on a writing project, that can take 10-12 hours a day. Between projects, we might barely spend any time working at all!
Rushmore: When I am not doing major development work on the site I spend about an hour a day reading the interesting contributions and responding to people who contact me directly. Roadfood.com is run entirely from volunteers who share a similar passion on food. Unlike many of the dot-coms that came an went over the past 10 years, we always had a very realistic outlook. Our business plan from the beginning has been to make enough money cover our overhead expenses and to align ourselves with people who share our passions.
OJR: Roadfood.com features fewer ads than many other websites. What is your economic model for the site, and how pleased are you with its economic performance?
Stern: Roadfood.com is a labor of love. We've never made any money from it, except perhaps very indirectly as a result of it encouraging book sales.
OJR: Would you consider adding more advertising to the site in the future? What would it take for you to do that?
Stern: So far, we have resisted any sort of advertising that would in any way intrude upon the content. Since this is not the way any of us make a living and we contribute our time gladly, it's not a problem resisting annoying banner ads, etc.
OJR: What software did you use to create the website? Are you happy with it?
Rushmore: The web site is run entirely on Microsoft Server products. For those with technical knowledge, we use the ASP.Net 2.0 platform as a code base along with SQL Server 2000 to store our data. I am thrilled with the site - we have received countless rewards from very respectable sources (Yahoo! Site of the Year, Forbes, PC Magazine, etc.)
OJR: Much of the content on Roadfood.com comes from its readers. How did you get readers to post thoughtful, interesting information to the site?
Stern: I like to think that, by definition, people interested in Roadfood are thoughtful and interesting. Of course the open forums, like any democratic venue, attract their share of trolls and troublemakers, but the number of people who have been banned because of truly offensive postings can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
Rushmore: We have a handful of moderators on the site providing quality control. For the most part, 98 percent of the comments posted in the forums don't need to be moderated. I like to think that when people see quality content they will be inspired to contribute to the same level. We occasionally get troublemakers on the site, but they are usually not very smart and we have various levels of containment. If you really push our buttons you will be redirected to WeightWatchers.com every time you attempt to access our site. No kidding!
OJR: How do you judge Roadfood.com's success?
Stern: The number of people using Roadfood.com has grown tremendously, 60 percent per year. We are now averaging 1/4 million unique users each month and over 2 million page views per month.
OJR: What's next for Roadfood.com? Are you planning any major expansions or alterations?
Stern: Stephen is currently working on an improved version. No dramatic changes, but we will have a wireless version so people can access site content via mobile phone or hand-held device.
OJR: What the are lessons you've learned from running Roadfood.com that you wish someone had taught you before you started?
Rushmore: Conduct continuous usability testing. We ran extensive testing in the early days which helped tremendously in launching a highly usable site, however, it pretty much stopped there. Reflecting back, we should have conducted more testing with our users whenever we wanted to implement major changes. It is easy to fall into the trap of assuming that everyone knows how to access all the features on the site and usability testing exposes these gaps.
Stern: Never, ever have a meal without taking photographs of the place and the food. I can't tell you how many places I've wanted to write up, but find myself with no images. Roadfood.com without pictures isn't right. I also wish we had started the logbook feature earlier. That's a way for "roadfood insiders" to keep track of all meals, revisits to restaurants, etc.
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