nosh nook #47 - tuesday, may 19, 2009

when twitter met food trucks (link)
05.18.09 - cnet news - by caroline mccarthy

social networking, status updates, shameless self-promotion...is there anything twitter can't do (in 140 characters or less)? as far as i can tell, the answer is "no." in fact, it's become so helpful & totally important that for a number of food trucks in nyc & l.a., it's a key promotional tool, helping them spread the word about their businesses & build a loyal customer base. as a result, the food truck craze is now upon us.

as caroline mccarthy reports for cnet, these mobile businesses aren't just hawkling junk food from the back of a truck. in nyc, the wafels & dinges truck peddles "wafels of mass deliciousness," while in l.a., kogi bbq trucks dispense korean bbq tacos. both have used twitter to let customers know where the truck will be parked, develop a community of customers & even hold little contests & junk. personally, i think it's friggin brilliant (no rent, community building) & apparently, so do a bunch of other people. there are other trucks in both cities, but there are others in other cities. san fran has a truck that sells frog legs on the go & portland, oregon will soon be getting a korean taco truck. yum & yum.

as is usual in this great nation of ours, with its opposing viewpoints & such, there are some who aren't so psyched about the food truck craze. for local business owners, with rent & whatnot, mobile trucks just mean more competition to deal with. here in nyc, a local starbucks in the west village even went as far as to have the iconic orange mud coffee truck booted from sheridan sq...probably because they don't have a twitter page. sorry starbucks, but this is what you get for having a business model that involves jacked up prices, rapid expansion & paul mccartney.

late side note: how crazy is it that cnet has articles like this, articles that are 50 times more in-depth than most major news outlets' output?