You know how it’s easier to follow a recipe in a cookbook if there is picture? It gives you something to shoot for when you can see what the finished product is supposed to look like. Well, the same thing goes for online recipes. Except, why stop with pictures when you can include complete video tutorials?
That’s what two French entrepreneurs, Jacque Petit and Gilles Piedoye Peteui, thought when they came up with Cookshow.com. The site, which just launched on Wednesday, is still a bit raw and lacks recipes for many basic ingredients (like “salmon”). But the idea is solid: Let amateur and professional cooks alike upload recipes with short videos showing exactly how to prepare them. Then the audience can vote on which video recipes are the best. It’s a Youtube for all the wannabe celebrity chefs who can’t get their own show on the Food Network. And some of the videos are not bad. Here is one, for instance, for fennel-rubbed flank steak. Yum. You rarely see people’s faces in these videos. It’s all hands and close-ups of eggs and meat in bowls.
As more people upload videos, the recipes should soon become pretty comprehensive. This could be a very successful model for online video. It’s a very targeted site trying to do one thing well: attract the best cooking videos. And tutorial videos work great on the Web because it fits in with the whole information-gathering mindset you are in when you are surfing. The site lets you search by cuisine, course, or ingredients. And there is even a contest for the best cooking video with prizes including a dinner for two and $500 gift certificates. That should help seed the site with more videos, which it desperately needs. After all, how long will it take the Food Network to do the same thing on its video site?
excellent, long live cookshow !
Brilliant! I’d rather see it, than just read a recipe.
This is very cool for all the amateur cooks like us. It is much better to see and learn to read and learn. Great, thanx for the info again
smart idea, it really is.
i am looking for videotutorials website (screencasts) are there any good ones u can suugest?
> Having a, damn I came up with that idea but didn’t do diddly squat with it moment.
I don’t get it. The BBC did this about six months ago minus the ugc bit?
It’s really easy to upload videos and I appreciate the focus on serious cooking content from professionals and amateurs alike without all the freak-show videos to distract (like YouTube).
wow. A site with a whole 64 pieces of user generated content gets on Techcrunch?
:/
/bitter
My girlfriend loves this site. It’s helped her make ME a few dozen excellent meals.
I’ve actually made Chef John’s flank steak! I love these food vid sharing sites that are popping up. It’s funny you mention the Chef not showing their faces. As someone thats watched hundreds (im a foodie) of these clips, thats not true, almost all the wannabes online are mugging for the camera. It’s funny since most of them look like they are doing an audition reel for Food Network.
@Rob_Bank – isn’t the ugc feature the whole point?
I like this idea! Great for those exchange students who really need to cook.
I actually get frustrated with cooking videos b/c it’s hard to follow to do it when you’re ready (ie when the computer is not near the kitchen). They’d better make sure each video has printable recipes and instructions to go along.
I came up with the similar idea 1 year ago (2006) about user generated video recipe site with social networking flare and voting system like digg.com. Anyone can submit their own recipe video, but the top 10 users will be able to setup their own channel to broadcast their show as well.
I also would like to build some data model based on the ingredients, calorie and nutritional value etc. So, I can build up a very comprehensive database for all kinds of different people’s diets that anyone can search the recipes based on different interest criteria.
To promote it, I will invite Rachael Ray and Iron Chefs to be a spoke person.
I like familyoven.com much better. They are getting more and more videos and also it’s more social so I can actually talk to the person who made the recipe as opposed to it being some random posting. Check it out and you can decide for yourself
And since I am a Chinese with passion for good food(I love to cook), the site will have a special focus on Chinese Cuisine and translation/multilingual. Anyone want to know more or participate on the web site founding please contact me. I have some prototypes already.
This should have a revenue model like blogger. The video contributor (chef) should share in the direct profit of quality content.
I know blogger has the advantage of being owned by Google, but I think this is the only answer to attracting quality content. On that note: YouTube is owned by Google and I don’t believe for a second that Google can’t share in the profits in the same way blogger has a contributor revenue sharing model.
i like the idea. Just worrying that youtube will setup a channel tomorrow specific for this. I don’t want to see things with such good intention lose to another giant.
@dave
CookShow.com is a niche market. If you’re looking for cooking recipe’s you are going to be more apt to watch CookShow.com then YouTube videos.
That said a YouTube Cooking Channel could only bolster Cooking content creation on CookShow.com by simply branding & video syndication.
No mention made here of a pretty cooking video site called Rouxbe?
http://rouxbe.com/
Have you all checked out http://www.ifood.tv ?
It is a much nicer site i feel, and offers not only lots of video recipes but has an entire community around food. It is a nice web 2.0 food site.
Its your youtube+myspace for foodies.
Yeah, http://www.ifood.tv is so much better and more interactive ! Thanks PK for pointing out.
Didnt realize that Techcrunch was so behind in the game of video recipe sites. I am actually surprised that they thingk the cookshow has an innovative idea. In the last few mths there have been plenty such sites like
iFood.tv
rouxbe.com
TechCrunch Wake UP guys!. I thought you folks were uptodate.
I have been following iFood.tv for mths. They have hundreds of video recipes and one of their popular chefs, Vikas Khanna was just on Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares
familyoven.com sucks! it looks like something my little sister put together.
This just in…
http://mashable...outube-adsense/
Nice, there’s a similar website here http://www.ifood.tv & it’s for everyone, not just chefs.
Wow..
Very nice site.
As a user above put it, I am kicking myself for not acting on this one. This is a great idea. For the web-savvy foodie, the offerings are unbelievably thin. And Food Network has decided to become the Middle-Age, White, Fat, Suburban Mom That Does Not Cook But Wants to Watch People Cook Network (long name, I know, that is why they shortened it to the Food Network
And has anyone watched the ads they run – they are almost entirely for pre-prepared foods or for the Olive Garden!
I looked at ifood.tv since there seems to be some support for it and I think they still need to do some work around their site layout and presentation. They have quite a bit of content and the social networking features are good but the site still needs some work i think.
brilliant idea!! now, what will be great is when they have a breakout section like “cook for your kids in 10 minutes or less” (or something like that)
…oh, or just a “what you can do with nutella” section…
MSNVideo Gormet is coming soon, forget this stuff!
This is a concept that was launched a long time ago at http://www.ifoods.tv and it is a lot more advanced there! Thought techcrunch would have picked that up earlier!
Great idea, but from what I can see it trails behind…
IPTVRecipes.com has *form* and 2.0 functionality. As a cooking professional I want to present my cooking channel (business) in a UI that has some pleasing aesthetics. Home cooks are going to want the same thing. YouTube is a horizontal for the masses and lacks FORM. Personally, iFood.tv is a cookie cutter site of YouTube (plus, iFood.tv lacks form altogether [sorry guys, but you do]… does anyone read cooking newspapers? no, we read beautiful cooking magazines). GroupRecipes.com isn’t too bad, but I think it trails too.
Of course form is not everything, a good cooking site will need great value-add tools and *differentiation*, yes? I’ve been talking to one of the news article writers for the IPTV Recipes site, she informs me the new tools they are about to launch will catapult IPTVRecipes.com beyond these other sites — can’t wait! Bring it on, form + 2.0 function
This is a great idea.
Ifood.tv wants to make to many things and there’s almost 2/3 of indian recipes. I’d rather watch a french website to get good UGc recipes…
all the best!
Can any of t hese food video sites please please please look at adding the archives of the old Discovery Channel show “Great Chefs” to their offerings. Amazing 8 minute clips of the best chefs in the world doing their thing.
(I reposted this because it didn’t post the first time)
Re; Form + Function’s post:
Form + Function, thank you! I’ve just checked out IPTVRecipes.com and have found exactly what I have been looking for. I have been looking for a cooking site that I can post my cooking recipes/videos and use as an extension of my own cooking video blog, but everywhere I looked the sites (including iFoods.tv) lacked design, were a mish-mash of cooking and other user interests, and lacked what I felt would be a good representation (ad) of my culinary art
Finally, a site that offers form and function (nice tools and 2.0 functionality) — thank you IPTVRecipes.com!
Can you share what they plan on launching? I’ll look for you on IPTV Recipes and add you as a contact.
Thanks everyone for this thread -
Ca Chef
I have been using http://www.ifood.tv for over 6 months and am very happy with the great community and nice site features they have.
iFood.tv gives personal Food TV to each of its member and the beauty of this is that you can embed the entire TV on your site. I have my entire iFood.tv show on my site http://www.hari....com/haritv.htm
The proof is in pudding not marketing mumbo-jumbo.
Hello -
This is Jacques from Cookshow. Thank you for all the great discussion and suggestions – the success of the site depends on its users and we are grateful for the support.
The concept of the site was simple: create a global web community to enable all those with a passion of cooking to connect with each other. We are very glad to see it take off as we continue to grow and improve the site. (Yongfook – we’re happy to say that we’re adding new users and content every day)
And MarysHungry – glad to hear you enjoy the steak – it is also one of our favourites. Bon appetit
@ca-chef, sorry to disagree with you, I went on IPTVrecipes but who wants to watch a 15 to 20 minutes cooking video ? How boring!
At least on Cookshow most of the videos last 3 minutes. Straight to the point. I like that!
Check out Cucina.com – they launched awhile ago and have some great content. I think they are US based.
@serguey, we all have our opinions (and needs), yours is equally valuable, so thank you
i see other cooking professionals here are actively using other cooking sites, that’s great — whatever works for them
as for being cooking videos being “straight to the point”, i have yet to see a 3 minute cooking show on television, even with extended commercials. in the culinary world (the professional cooking community and those who love/enjoy cooking), I have yet to bump into any chef/home cook who would think of producing a recipe in 3 mins, unless a hard boiled egg or toast is the dish of the day. cooking is a process that involves food selection, prep work, actual cooking techniques, all the while educating the viewer – cooking is not plug-n-play
aside from my professional cooking career i’m also passionate about other things, gardening is one of them. in comparison, as a beginner in this area, i prefer to watch an experienced gardener as s/he walks me through most (if not all) the steps in creating a healthy garden, from start to finish, educating me as to the why and how, rather than showing me snippets of this process. i believe we all can apply this to our own passions on some level. to learn properly i need the experience of the how and value the why. videos enhance this ability. if a cook wants the quick and dirty, just grab the text recipe under the recipe video
lastly, i’m not a techie, but i’m told 3 to 5 mins is about all you can tape with a 100MB video upload, and this is the maximum file size most of the video cooking sites allow? maybe one can squeeze a 10 minute cooking show if the video resolution was low quality, but then we would see even lower quality video when we choose to view it enlarged (the enlarge button)? IPTVRecipes.com has the cook/chef in mind here, allowing us 1GB of video space per recipe.
to me, the people at IPTVRecipes.com deliver form, function, and have thought through the individual needs of all its members’ needs.
ok, that’s enough from me. again, to each their own
thanks again for letting me share,
ca-chef
Regarding iFood.tv, sheeeeesh, looks like a dating site from the 90s. White page and icons – hardly appealing.
Ummmmm, like the guy said before, 2/3 of all their recipes are from India…. not to sound racist (because i’m not!), but is their name short for IndianFood.tv?
Trace
Trace, you should be at the improv… good one (and I’m 1/2 Indian, so don’t label me either, lol). For the record, iFood.tv does does look like pac man designed it — too many icons… looks like the old ICQ site
@ > Hari
After reading your post I vsited your website (http://www.hari....com/haritv.htm) — I sure hope your cooking is better than your web design, lol.
Great reading. I really appreciated what ca-chef had to say. I live 1/2 in the kitchen, the other half dining out. I love cooking shows and appreciate the details (the how and why, as ca-chef puts it). I guess that other guy who loves the “straight to the point” cooking shows is a fast food kinda guy?
Grace
We just went to beta with cooking video submissions at BigOven.com. We’ll be rolling out a cooking video section to accompany the 160,000+ recipe site and social network about food that we’re rapdily building out. Cheers!
We are now live with cooking videos on http://www.bigoven.com. We’ve only got a few of them up there, but will be adding more constantly as new submissions roll in. Tagging is supported in this initial release.
i love cooking and wants to learn moor recipies
Here’s a fun cooking video if you’d like how to learn how to make scrambled eggs:
http://www.yout...h?v=OkaiZsJMurU
how2heroes is based in the US and features user uploads as well as original high-quality cooking and food how-tos that we sheet across America. hope you enjoy and will consider uploading your video t how2heroes.com