BakeSpace.com is a social networking site for people who like cooking.
The self-funded California based company aims to provide a virtual kitchen online, a place where people gather to “cook, talk and hang out”.
BakeSpace.com allows users browse, share and swap recipes, stage their own live cooking demonstrations and seminars, upload food photos & videos and be inspired by others who share a passion for food, cooking and baking.
BakeSpace.com launched in August 2006 and has grown to have in excess of 10,000 users with a similar number of recipes having been submitted.
The site recently teamed up with kitchen appliance manufacturer KitchenAid for a promotion that will see an appliance a day being given away in July, the first time KitchenAid has used a social network to promote its products.
Amongst the frenzy at the top of the social networking market, it’s easy to forget that there is still space for smaller, niche targeted social networking sites. BakeSpace.com is niche: the pink graphics and girly layout is targeted directly at stay at home moms, so I’m not in a position of ultimately judging its appeal. I would guess that if you like Martha Stewart and watching Oprah while baking cookies, you’re probably going to like BakeSpace.com.
How will the live demos and seminars be created …
are individuals using a hosted conference setting …
these homemakers had better be tech savy as well as being great cooks,
quite a rare combination of traits for one person to have in 2007
Perhaps sponsors and restaurants will be the ones holding the demos and seminars.
Bakespace, how original.
I would like to do something similar with beerspace.com, of course I think it will have a broader audience.
CJ Jones
I have to agree
Horrible, horrible site.
Look at the layout, this is one of those pre-made social networks you buy for $99.
I would expect this sort of site to get covered over @ Mashable, but not TC.
I’ll stick with Epicurious.
@2, i agree – another blahspace.com…how original.
i bet this site wouldn’t have gotten a TC writeup had it not been partnered with big-name KitchenAid appliances
Does this really warrant a TechCrunch review? I’m all for niche social networks (I think they provide more value than MySpace and Facebook to their audiences), but the functionality is standard at best (even the forums are run on an off-the-shelf message board platform), the design is not very eye-pleasing and KitchenAid giving away a ~$500 prize is not exactly newsworthy. Mashable gave this a less-than-flattering review last August so it seems like TechCrunch is a little bit late.
There is no shortage of these types of startups. TechCrunch will have content for years if it wants to cover all the MySpace for this, Digg for that, etc. clones.
Bakespace is where
The stoners with big hair
Would chill before class
And smoke all their grass
Haha…..
This reminds of that pee article that was there some time back.
May be someone could start a shitspace. Then one wouldn’t have to search anywhere for a place to pee!!!
duncan donunts
I thought there *must* be a better site in this space. Google brought up:
Group Recipes.
Having said that @9, the site ain’t that bad.
Quite a lot of recipes. Eventhough what will turn up once the descriptions are followed…only God knows.
Hope they send a sample to everyone interested.
They should get some sort of deal with http://www.cook...amacookoff.com/ – it’s a perfect partnership!
Do some virtual training on the Wii, then get some recipies from bakespace and try it for real
- Mikael
You need some sleep. you got addicted to TC more than cooking website.
8am – 4am.
best thing on techcrunch in a long time. i actually want to join; use the receipes. Once you learn how to cook, you like doing it; and it taste good.
Hi guys – Babette from BakeSpace here. Thanks for the review and the heated debate. I’m honored that you felt compelled to comment. We’d be happy to send over some cupcakes – these have made grown men cry… Devil’s Food Cupcakes (for Gomzi)
As for Adam, thanks for the *heads up*on the other site – I’ll have to check it out. You’re clearly very passionate, and I’m sure your comments are genuine (why else would you post them here?). I’m always on the lookout for a good recipe or two so we appreciate your enthusiasm.
FYI Drama2.0- I think Pete from Mashable reviewed us 2 hours after launching in August, so we’re worth a second look.. don’t ya think? Also, the giveaway is a prize-a-day for the entire month, plus two grand prizes.. that’s 33 premium kitchen appliances. If you’re a cooking enthusiast, you’ll definitely appreciate the prizes offered (one member submitted 200 recipes today to win a KitchenAid slow cooker). Teaming up with KitchenAid helps us add value to our members’ offline lives as much as we add to their online experience. You should really come check out our recipes… most of them have a great story regarding how they came to be or were invented. Send your mom the link and then let’s talk.
I’m sure she has some great recipes to share.
I love looking for recipes to cook and new things to try. Searching for recipes online was really cluttered. The best suggestions, obviously, came from friends. It got to the point where finding recipes was so inefficient online that I joined a Facebook group which has over 5000+ members. And I’d just go through the messages.
I think this idea is genius. Not only does it solve a problem, but it has a targeted audience allowing for efficient advertising and monetization options.
@11
Adam, good link! Seems like these guys have their competition cut out for them.
@5,11
Adam, Time for a chill pill. You might not like the site’s girly look and feel, but did you notice the Webby in the footer?
Sounds like a great site to meet women who can cook …
I’m disappointed in TC for even reviewing this site…
Haha…
Thanks @Babette
See guys!!! A man can achieve great things in life when he’s hungry!
Commenter 14: you keep popping up everywhere and you’re an idiot, I’m not on the West Coast of the US, I wrote this in the middle of the day my time.
Adam
you’re not female, as I noted for myself you’re really not qualified to judge. To other commenter’s questioning this being worthy, I love it how you’re all male…hello, of course blokes aren’t going to find this site good, however believe it or not there are women in this world as well and some of them even read TechCrunch! The site is different and may appeal to a female demographic, if it’s not you because your male, live with it.
i still think yahoo! food’s the best
I am still looking for anyone that can help me program what I need to supply a solution to recipes that are actually healthy. The idea of http://www.nosinnerdinner.com is almost 4 years old now and getting “stale”.
The concept of bakespace is good, though. It lacks the ability to enter the ingredients’ food value (fat, carbs and so on), also there should be warning if the recipies contains ingredients dangerous for diabetes patients and others, but I am sure Babette and her colleagues are already working on it.
Also, the site is only interesting to people inside USA. Internet is global, remember?
On a side note: Wonder what http://www.spacebake.com would look like, hehe.
Really a cool stuff am sure it would soon be converting from self funded to VC funded.
BeyondWWW
WHY are people not mentioning the AWESOME
http://www.opensourcefood.com
?? fools.
Why we are not? hmm…
“The Ingredients
Aprovechando que conocimos la noticia de que los champiñones son saciantes, además de que entramos en la época de enseñar el cuerpo y está considerado como un ingrediente ideal para dietas de adelgazamiento, vamos a aprovechar para incorporarle calorías y algunos nutrientes con nuestros champiñones rellenos de jamón y queso azul. Sea cual sea tu dieta, no dudes en darte este gustazo.
”
perhaps that is one of the reasons?
One thing which web 2.0 achieved is democratisation of Info, any info which was hitherito only buyable is now available free.
http://www.tekn...ld.blogspot.com
Morten S > you think all user-generated content should be in your language only?
Woah. Baking is for a female demographic? Did I timeslip back into 1950? I’m tempted to go make some banana bread in gender retaliation.
Anyway, I’d be interested to learn about the development of the site; this looks like more of a grassroots project than most of the sites featured on TechCrunch.
Open Source Food looks fantastic, and although it’s more of a blog, I’m a big Cooking for Engineers fan.
With all of the innovation going on outside the US, I get increasingly frustrated by TC’s narrow geographical focus. Ignoring Europe, Israel and Asia on an almost daily basis is bad enough but to devote an article to this rubbish is (to pardon a pun) the icing on the cake.
Ben
I didn’t say baking was for women, but blind freddy can see with all that pink that this isn’t a service targeted at men.
Andy
BS. I’ve covered companies from through Europe, Israel, Asia and Australia, oh and BTW I’m not American nor do I live in the US…so go figure on your bias crap. Again, because you don’t like this site (your male) doesn’t make it any less valuable to those in the target demographic
woah Duncan…TC needs to hire you a PR assistant.
Duncan – being male has nothing to do with it, please don’t tar me with that brush. And if you read my comments properly you’ll see that I didn’t day that TC *never* covers companies outside the US, just that it is the exception when a story make it in. This isn’t a pop at you, mate, just the editorial process in general.
Interesting…but check out Snacksby.com!
While perfect execution may not be the strong-point of the site so far, the overall concept on niche social networks is most certainly an upcoming trend. They’ve managed to get the site launched, land a few clients, start to get market validation, and get in TC with no outside funding.
Now, it will be interesting to watch to see if they can grow from 10K to 100K and beyond in a short time. The network effect matters in vertical sites.
hey, another totally generic themed social networking site. unfortunately it doesn’t have a “web 2.0″ name like blendr or food processr so I’ll have to cut my valuation in half to $40 million. projected acquisition: microsoft, this winter
(Stay at Home Mom) + (Free Social Networking Script from HotScripts.com) = Bakespace.com. Lol.
I think this could give Truemors a run for its money in the “Worst 2.0 In History” competition?
RE: 26 — yongfook, I just checked out the site you hyped. You forgot to mention that you own it. Talk about heavy-handed self promotion (what kind of fool says “AWESOME” in all caps?). looks like you are the one who needs to hire a PR assistant -
Don’t people realize that the myspace of this space is cakecentral.com? Shameless plug, my friends personal site with her cake pics: keencakes.com
@39, wasn’t that obvious? since he had used it as the default link too.
May I suggest that foodies also take a look at Urbanspoon (www.urbanspoon.com), a very user friendly site that also has some networking technologies around restaurants – reviews, recommendations, sharing restaurants with people you know, etc.. Really clean UI, good site.
Sites are built on platform around niches all the time. I can’t stand the notion that if you don’t code a site from SCRATCH, that it is a second class website. Microsoft.NET and things of that nature are code sets too, and no one ever takes a shot at someone building a site with .Net . It’s easy to hate on a site when you are not in it’s target market.
Bottom line of a successful website is this: Does the site have an audience? And does the audience like the site? I think the answer for bakespace seems to be “yes” on both. Remember that the ultimate goal here is not to make all the code lovers out there “ooh and ah” over your site, but to build a successful business.
Not to be rude, but the anti-Duncan comments are annoying. I don’t like every reporter at the New York Times, but that doesn’t mean I go ballistic on them each time they publish an article. Appreciate that there are different voices on TechCrunch – and skip the writers that you don’t like. Y’all are acting like stalkers.
As for bakespace, it’s a cute idea. I too am not a huge fan of the interface, but I’ve got plenty of crazy cooking friends and I think they’d love this kind of thing. I will definitely send it to my sister. She owns a cake company and hangs out on the worst cake message board. this is much better.
@ Jarrod, I agree. I own a custom built site. It’s a pain in the ass.
I would like to thank Babette for publishing the cupcake recipe since it made me want to check out Bake Space. Whether I join or not will depend on how good the cupcakes turn out. LOL.
Duncan – good review. I like the fact that you can recognize the value in a community that you are not part of. My wife is the target audience and a regular user of Epicurious – which is the hands-down winner for now. This site has great potential – it may not be all web2.0′d up, but it has utility. btw, these stay at home moms that are baking cookies don’t seem to be watching much Oprah from what I can tell. They are busy volunteering at school, separating kids from fighting, arranging play dates, reviewing the kids summer camp schedules, getting the dog to the vet, sorting and folding an endless pile of clothes, etc.,
I bet if you looked at the site activity, the peak would actually be between 9PM and 1AM. The only time that moms can slow down for a few minutes.
I understand this market a lot better than the myspace, text messaging crowd of teens — my four kids are all under 10 – I know mom’s and they will dig this site.
Bakespace is a great concept and is off to a really good start. A lot of money is thrown at online efforts that never succeed at getting any real users. Why not start off grassroots like Bakespace did and simply validate the idea? With a little funding now, imagine where it can go….
What have you all built on your own lately?
Just had a very quick flick through BakeSpace, we were actually thinking of building a cooking vertical last year but we stumbled upon AllRecipes.com (http://allrecipes.com) and I believe they have very good traction so we decided to concentrate on other verticals.
One thing that I think BakeSpace needs to implement immediately is voting on the recipe and also member rank… why should i trust this recipe and also the baker who authored it?
Tagging would also be very useful…. oh, and I also cant seem to search? :s
Good luck to them, I think there is definitely a market.
Clay Cook
Co-Founder – Minti & Refurber
It is good to see these niche social networking sites take off. We started an outdoor enthusiast social network (outdoorzy.com) and when viewing our stats compared to bakespace.com in alexa it gets me really excited. Congrats to bakespace.com for their growth! I can’t wait till we get to 10K members!