BOOK OUTRAGE BOILS OVER FOR WHITCOULLS

There is nothing more fascinating than a fast brewing social media storm.

There are howls of outrage today as foodies around the country find out that Bookseller giant Whitcoulls wont stock the latest cooking tome of top chef and food artiste Martin Bosley.

His new book will be a popular Xmas present and even with a $90 price tag Bosleys stunning food presentation will elevate this book beyond your normal pantry guide.

Bosleys says this

"Despite rave reviews, our stunning new book is not for sale at Whitcoulls as its not 'their kind of book', Makes you wonder what is."

And interestingly the pot is being stirred by another leading chef who loves playing with his food - Kent Baddeley.

Wine writers, foodies critics and Wellingtonians are incensed, the tweets and facebook pages are filling up fast. Whitcoulls will need to act quicker that baking powder in a sponge if its to dampen this one down before it find its self with a spoiled reputation.

Another realtime example of the power of social media. Stuff like this is happening:

"Martin Bosley, @martinbosleys is now trending in New Zealand http://trendsmap.com/nz"

And for those who are interested the #hashtag on twitter is #farkuwhitcoulls.

Power to the peeps, we say.

And yip we will be buying a copy.

WAITER THERE IS A TWIT IN MY RESTAURANT

We reported recently on our experience with twittering our concerns about a substandard fish pie we had in a cafe recently and the fact that the restaurant was monitoring twitter and sorted out the issue in short order.

Now the Herald is carrying a story on how Twitter is being used by restaurants. Hospitality by its very nature is a great place to capitalise on the benefits of social media. Wellingtonians are joining up Four Square in droves as it points the social butterflies to the best deals around the place.

One of best examples on the Wellington scene of social media use is St Johns. the normally laconic owner Jason is having some fun on twitter offering deals on beer and wine every time the wind gets up . His latest effort is a total pisstake of himself but already he has had 3500 people view the vid on Youtube.

Well done him.

We are really expecting that the hospitality will be huge users of social media. Its immediacy and ability to target are a marketers wet dream.