Ordr.in Food API Hackathon Press Coverage in PandoDaily

Hacking food, deliciously, with Ordr.in’s API (now expanded to NYC, Philly and Boston)

“Picture this: you are a nerd,” a guy in a Facebook T-shirt declares to a room of hackers munching on gourmet fried chicken. He looks around. “Oh, who am I kidding. We’re all nerds.”

The small crowd of presumed nerds hardly acknowledges his joke, nodding in keen anticipation for the nerdy thing Guy in Facebook T-shirt is about to unveil. It turns out to be a chat room with the ability to place a group takeout order through simple text commands. It isn’t pretty but it works like a charm. The crowd cheers, a gong is pounded and everyone swigs white wine and as the next presenter, a refrigerator sensor called iFridge, sets up. This is a food hackathon.

Sure hackathons for payment platforms, or social networks, or location-based apps can be fun. But this weekend I learned the best kind of hackathon satisfies our most basic need — the need for sustenance.

Ordr.in is a New york-based TechStars alum backed by Google Ventures. To celebrate its completely rebuilt developer portal and the expansion of its service to New York City, Boston and Philadelphia, the company hosted its first ever hackathon a Pivotal Labs in Union Square. An event of this nature can’t get away with the standard pizza and Red Bull refreshments, so hackers gorged on made-to-order crepes and a catered dinner fromPeels as they built tools around Ordr.in’s ordering API. I left with a few takeaways (including from a stomach full of pie): Group ordering at the office is still a massive source of annoyance, and hardware startups always win hackathons.

Ordr.in’s API makes it simple for any app or website to include ordering functionality. The company makes money from restaurants implementing its services and there is a small of revenue share after the system is implemented. Ordr.in’s API has become popular enough that three startups are launching in the fall built entirely with the platform, CEO David Bloom says. He calls the system “Twilio for food.”

The winner was a hardware app built with an Arduino controller and RFIDs called iFridge (nevermind that name has been taken). The app tracks what goes in and out of your fridge, counting calories, playing a celebratory song when you bust out the champagne, and alerting you when someone other than you removes a beer you’ve “locked” in the app.

The iFridge team with their Hackfood trophy

Several of the hacks aimed to solve the problem of group ordering lunch at the office –i t’s a common point of angst, and how much can you really do with an ordering API? The answer, apparently, is a lot.

The range of creativity managed to surprised me: Hackers built a subway stop-off app that identifies the best places to order takeout near subway stops on one’s route home. There was an actually quite brilliant Taskrabbit-for-food-delivery system called Deliveryhop that I could see disrupting the entire delivery system used by restaurants. There was a gamified system of betting on what you think your office mates will order for lunch (and winning a dollar off your own if you’re correct). The presentations were bookended by projects of food adorableness, courtesy of IsItCookieTime.com, built by Ordr.in’s API architect, Ricky Robinett, and a bacon ice cream mascot by Pamela Castillo and Mike Caprio (pictured top left) named “Mr. Crave.”

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Ordr.in has a set of APIs and white label apps that turn any website or device into a way you order food. Clients as large as Wyndham Worldwide are building their own food ordering services on top... read more

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Link to original article on PandoDaily

Ordr.in named among the top 100 Brilliant Companies by Entrepreneur Magazine and has a great week of press coverage.

PALgenesis portfolio company, Ordr.in, was named among the 100 Brilliant Companies selected by Entrepreneur.com. They said that "Ordr.in: Turns any website, app or device into a way to order food. Restaurant owners get a one-stop shop to manage their menus online and access to a network of hungry customers."

The List was determined by 'brilliance" which expresses itself in many ways--from the esoteric tinkerings of a mad genius to the profit-heavy balance sheets that illustrate the work of astute executives. Sometimes brilliance is merely a deceptively simple, why-hasn't-anyone-thought-of-this-before solution to a nagging problem.

Ordr.in also received positive coverage:

ReadWriteWeb: Order Food without Leaving FaceBook

WOMMA: I crave that place

QSR Leader: Ordr.in to power restaurant order taking "anywhere," turn devices, sites into new marketing channels. This publication, Quick Serve Leader wnet on to call Ordr.in "one of Ten Technologies to Watch in 2012."

Well done team!

Ordr.in to Power Restaurant Order Taking 'Anywhere,' Turn Devices, Sites into New Marketing Channels

By Rick Zambrano - www.QuickServeLeader.com - May 2012

In the future, diners will be able to order food from any device, including their TV, game consoles, and cable interactive menus. These devices will carry software that will connect and order food for them and even suggest delivery places nearby, seamlessly with the TV viewing and gaming experience. Ordr.in is the company that plans to bring this future to restaurants and its customers sooner rather than later, by way of its proprietary software.

“We are a tool to connect restaurants with customers wherever the customer is, and let that customer transact however they want," says David Bloom, CEO and co-founder of Ordr.in. "We are a new, powerful and efficient part of a restaurant's marketing activities."

And people are taking notice, including the powers that be at Google Ventures, which invested in October.

Ordr.in, founded in 2010, provides software to allow third party publishers to launch their own food ordering systems, connected to a national network of partner restaurants. These new food ordering services can be anywhere or on any website, app or even internet-connected devices like a cable box. One Ordr.in client is Wyndham Hotels. Ordr.in software powers the hotel chain’s “virtual room service” widget on their guest Wi-Fi, letting guests order food for delivery from local restaurants.

For restaurants, they can access a typically hard-to-reach customer group.

In addition to powering other food ordering sites, Ordr.in is now building food ordering apps that restaurants can use on their own website. Recently, Ordr.in announced the industry’s first Facebook timeline integration. Restaurants can register with Ordr.in to get their own branded version for their own Facebook page.  When customers order using the app, the order will be announced on their own Timelines and in their friends’ news feeds, a great marketing and branding tool for local restaurants.

The New York-based company also helps customers build their own ordering tools. "We can also turn around and help restaurants launch their own way of offering food ordering," says Bloom. He adds that Ordr.in can layer on top of solutions in which a restaurant already invested.

The 'Future' of Ordering

"We become the new marketing channel by building on top of what they've already deployed or giving them their own e-commerce," says Bloom. One of the main goals of the company is to become the engine that connects restaurants with customers, much like the travel booking engine Sabre connects travel sites and agents to lodging, vacation properties, airlines, and more.

“Sabre acts as that agent between them," says Bloom. "So we act like that plug-in. We have that app that will have hundreds of thousands of restaurants on it." He's betting that restaurants won't want to replicate their ordering capabilities or partnerships one after another, each time they’re approached with a new marketing opportunity, due to the inconvenience. He says once the restaurant's menu is listed with Ordr.in, it can then be "pushed out," or published on many other sites that are relevant for ordering.

Restaurateurs are often challenged in finding new guests to come to their venues, deciding how to spend their marketing to attract new guests. Ordr.in provides the tools to connect restaurants with publishers, who indirectly offer new sets of customers. It also creates the tools that enable restaurateurs to accept online ordering.

While it currently uses ordering partners, such as OLO, to provide web ordering capability to restaurants, the company is adding its own web and mobile for IOS (iPhone, iPad) and Android ordering engine this summer.

Ordr.in's co-founder says the company is working on new opportunities similar to the one it found in enabling partner ordering through vacation properties such as Wyndham Hotels. "There are no announcements yet, but we're thinking very big."

Ordering Anytime, Anywhere

The technology behind Ordr.in will also find itself on interactive menus, including those on customers’ TV's, as well as cable and game consoles. "We are a software that turns any device into one that can engage with restaurants," adds Bloom. "The restaurant industry fundamentally forces the customer to go to it for a specific experience; and what we want to do is to create new and theoretically infinite ways of customers finding the restaurants and shopping the merchants."

Bloom says that ordering hasn't changed much since the 90's when ordering sites created "virtual food courts," now represented by companies like GrubHub and Seamless. He plans to revolutionize food ordering.

Restaurants may be concerned about fees and whether Ordr.in's new funnels for ordering will cannibalize less costly sales, through the phone for example.

Bloom counters that customers, whether on the Internet or watching TV, are going to interact in the ways they prefer with restaurants. In addition to bringing new customers, allowing existing customers to order food through new channels at a cost of five percent is reasonable, he suggests.

"For the five percent, if there is a consumer that wants to watch TV and order in that way, then make that consumer happy," Bloom quips. "You are already putting the dressing on the side, or packaging it separately, which has some operational issues."

In the short-term, the company is considering flat rate fees, which will result in lower costs to restaurants, on a percentage-basis. With some hefty backing, and big thinking, Ordr.in is a "top 10 technology" to watch in the restaurant industry in 2012.

Link to original Article on www.QuickServeLeader.com

Ordr.in introduces first food ordering app for Facebook timeline

Ordr.in.     New York, NY (PRWEB) May 01, 2012

Google Ventures-backed start-up Ordr.in (http://www.ordr.in) has launched one of the first-of-its-kind restaurant commerce apps for the Facebook timeline. The app helps hungry consumers discover and order new restaurant dishes, and share what they eat to the Facebook timeline using the new actions “crave” and “eat.” The Ordr.in app also gives restaurants an easy, self-service marketing tool to take orders from Facebook, their website and mobile devices, all connected to the Facebook timeline, starting today.

Ordr.in’s new restaurant delivery app for the Facebook timeline is based on their transactional APIs that unite the local restaurant industry on a single, open platform primed for rapid-fire innovation. The Facebook timeline app demonstrates the power of their open APIs. Ordr.in offers white label versions of this app that can be installed for any restaurant’s Facebook page.

“We are thrilled to be one of the first restaurant commerce platforms to integrate with the Facebook timeline,” said David Bloom, CEO of Ordr.in. “We’re always looking for new ways for consumers and restaurants to engage, transact and share — timeline integration is just the beginning. We can’t wait to see restaurants using the app for themselves and what other restaurant technology companies will do with our APIs.”

Restaurants can pre-enroll to get their own white-label Facebook timeline ordering apps at ordr.in/restaurants.

About Ordr.in 
Ordr.in is a Google Ventures-backed start-up and TechStars alumni that was recently named to the Silicon Alley100. Ordr.in has developed a suite of transactional APIs that can turn any website or app into a way for consumers to order food for delivery. Fortune 100 companies, publishers and individual developers use Ordr.in’s APIs to deploy their own food ordering systems connected to our national network of restaurants. By organizing the local restaurant industry into a single, national platform, Ordr.in is bringing about the most fundamental change to the restaurant industry since franchising in the 1950s 

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Melbourne-based accelerator AngelCube announces 2012 program - 8 new companies introduced

Google Ventures-backed start-up Ordr.in (http://www.ordr.in) has launched one of the first-of-its-kind restaurant commerce apps for the Facebook timeline. The app helps hungry consumers discover and order new restaurant dishes, and share what they eat to the Facebook timeline using the new actions “crave” and “eat.” The Ordr.in app also gives restaurants an easy, self-service marketing tool to take orders from Facebook, their website and mobile devices, all connected to the Facebook timeline, starting today.

Ordr.in’s new restaurant delivery app for the Facebook timeline is based on their transactional APIs that unite the local restaurant industry on a single, open platform primed for rapid-fire innovation. The Facebook timeline app demonstrates the power of their open APIs. Ordr.in offers white label versions of this app that can be installed for any restaurant’s Facebook page.

“We are thrilled to be one of the first restaurant commerce platforms to integrate with the Facebook timeline,” said David Bloom, CEO of Ordr.in. “We’re always looking for new ways for consumers and restaurants to engage, transact and share — timeline integration is just the beginning. We can’t wait to see restaurants using the app for themselves and what other restaurant technology companies will do with our APIs.”

Restaurants can pre-enroll to get their own white-label Facebook timeline ordering apps at ordr.in/restaurants.

About Ordr.in 
Ordr.in is a Google Ventures-backed start-up and TechStars alumni that was recently named to the Silicon Alley100. Ordr.in has developed a suite of transactional APIs that can turn any website or app into a way for consumers to order food for delivery. Fortune 100 companies, publishers and individual developers use Ordr.in’s APIs to deploy their own food ordering systems connected to our national network of restaurants. By organizing the local restaurant industry into a single, national platform, Ordr.in is bringing about the most fundamental change to the restaurant industry since franchising in the 1950s 

Robots and Romotive in the News

Romotive was written up in BusinessInsider. To excerpt the coverage:

The Company,  based in Las Vegas that will soon have its robots sold in stores nationwide. More than 2,000 of its devices were ordered on Kickstarter before there was a product to ship, and CEO Keller Rinaudo wants to put a robot in every household by 2022.

"We grew up watching movies with amazing robots," says Rinaudo.  "Unfortunately they suck today.  They're either cheap plastic toys that break or they cost $5 million dollars. That's a huge gap. There needs to be one that's affordable that can do normal things."

Right now, Romotive is just a mini car that an iPhone, Android, or iPad can control. The mobile device becomes the brain of the robot on wheels. But it wants to create a robot API so developers can create actions for its smart phone-controlled devices.

Products like Romotive's and Bandai's are the future of toys and mobile gaming -- they're toys that keep evolving without ever having to buy new versions. Product improvements will be downloaded, not bought.

Kane Hsieh

Romotive co-founder Keller RInaudo plays with the smart phone robot, Romo.

Rinaudo says the amount of time spent on computers five years ago is the amount of time spent on mobile devices today. He believes that's also the amount of time we'll spend interacting with robots five years from today.

According to the article, in the US, robotics is a $1.35 billion industry; It's a $20 billion industry globally. By 2015, personal robots are expected to be a $15 billion industry. Robitics is expected to become a $70 billion industry by 2025.

Right now, robots are seen most in big industries like automotive, aerospace, and pharmaceutical, and they come with a hefty price tag.  But they're starting to become more mainstream. The National Robotics Initiative, for example, is spending $70 million to design "co-robots" that help and interact with people, like the elderly.  

Robots are getting easier to make, too. Willow Garage is creating an ROS (Robot Operating System) so developers can create robot applications, much like they develop mobile apps and games.

As robots become cheaper to produce, they'll make everything cheaper to produce. The average salary of a Chinese worker is $3 an hour -- the average cost of running a small robot factory in China is $0.15 per hour.

Venture Capitalists are noticing the robotics trend and they're pouring more money into these companies -- $160 million in 2011 -- than ever before. Soon you'll be picking out personal robots instead of personal computers from the shelves of stores like Best Buy.

Read more: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-04-06/tech/31298172_1_personal-robots-bandai-android#ixzz1t9onJ7oQ