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On Say Mmm, it is easy to organize your grocery list by store and by area in the store to save you time finding what you need. Previously when you grouped an item into an area, like “Dairy”, it would remember your preferences for the next time, and now we have made this even easier by automatically categorizing the area of the item for you. All you have to do is type in the name of the things you need to get and we’ll group them for you. You can also still change categorizations and we’ll remember your personal preferences. Currently we are able to auto-categorize hundreds of popular items and we are adding lots more every day.

Another recent update for the grocery list is the smart coupon suggestions. Next to your shopping list we will show online coupon offers, and if we can match available coupons to the items you buy frequently, we will show those first. To use coupons, you just click on the link and follow the directions to print out the coupons.

Below is a video for a refresher on some of the other popular grocery list features, like auto-suggesting frequent items, remembering dish ingredients and groups of items, and letting you print out lists or check off items on your phone:

If you are a blogger or have your own website, check out our new widgets.  They let you share things from your Say Mmm public profile right on your site.

The “What I am eating” is fun for showing what you are eating lately, and you can choose to have it display the most recent day or a week at a time.  The widget automatically pulls the info from your plan area so it is easy to keep the latest info updated.

The other widget is a “My Stuff” widget that will display your profile image and show links to your meal, recipe and restaurant ideas if you are sharing them publicly on your profile.  It makes it easy to share your ideas in a more structured way with a broader range of people.

Both widgets are easy to customize, and you can change the colors and size as you like. Then just copy and paste the code to your site or blog.

Have you eaten a friends house, tried something new you really liked, and asked for the recipe?  Or ordered a meal at a restaurant that you heard about from a friend?  We pick up new ideas in social contexts easily and spontaneously.  And shared food and experiences are ways that we connect with others and learn about ourselves.  There is a little bit of magic in these types of social connections for bringing people together, and Say Mmm tries to make this happen more easily online.

Now on Say Mmm you can share what you are eating with friends and family and see what your friends are having.  Sharing is automatically connected to the information in your planning calendar, and you can choose whether to share on a daily or weekly basis (or not at all if you are shy).  See a quick view of the latest things your friends are eating on your friends page, and click through to individual profiles for more info on a recipe or restaurant that looks interesting.

In addition to being a great way to get new ideas, it’s a fun way to connect.  More things to talk about, more reasons to smile, and more ways to stay in touch.  You can’t eat with all your friends all the time, but you can share a little bit of the Mmm online.

Your profile makes it easy to share ideas with friends no matter where they are, and you control whether you want to share with Say Mmm friends, publicly, or keep things private.

The main parts of the profile include:

• Info and picture – Add a profile picture and choose whether to show your name and contact info.
• My stuff – Let friends take a peek into your cook book and reviews with links to meal ideas, recipes and restaurants.
• What I am eating – Share what you are eating lately. This will show the daily or latest entry from your plan area, and you can set it to show the past or upcoming week.
• Recently added – Newly added recipes and restaurants will automatically appear here.
• Favorites – What is your passion? Put together top 10 lists or favorite places.
• Messages – Share individual thoughts and experiences linked to specific meals, recipes, or restaurants. 

By default your profile is shared only with your friends you add on Say Mmm. You also get your own public profile URL at saymmm.com/me/your_username, so you can share your profile or parts of your profile more broadly. Just set the sections you want displayed as public and share your profile the link with anyone you like.

Here are a couple example profiles to check out:

• http://saymmm.com/me/luv2cook 
• http://saymmm.com/me/fine2dine

Food is more fun with others. We try new things, get ideas, and enjoy sharing stories and tips, and we do this naturally when we share a meal with a friend, colleague or family.

Online, sometimes it isn’t as easy to share ideas as it should be, so Say Mmm tries to make this as simple and fun as possible.  There are a couple basic ways to share on Say Mmm:

1. Add a friend – When you add a friend, you both can see each others meal, recipe, and restaurant ideas and swap ideas with a few clicks.   Add a couple close friends or family members and you’ll have your own private community for sharing ideas and experiences. 

2. Share your profile – Your profile lets you set how you want to share your ideas, either privately, with friends, or publicly.  With your own URL at saymmm.com/me/username, its easy to share ideas with anyone via email or on your website or blog.

3. Share a post – You can easily share individual thoughts and experiences with your friends or publicly…and click to post to Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.  Its just like posting directly on Facebook or another network, but with the advantages of being able to link to more details on a recipe or restaurant. 

These are some of the basics, and you can click to learn more about sharing eating ideas on Say Mmm.  

Chances are if you are like most people, you have recipes in multiple places.  Maybe in cookbooks, on printouts, in various folders and binders, in computer documents, on multiple websites, or in lists of bookmarks or links, or maybe you just remember where they are online or how to find them on Google.

With Say Mmm you can organize all your recipes and recipe links in one place, categorize and format them as you like, add photos, and keep notes of what you did or when you had them.  It makes finding what you need when you need it simple.  Just browse through ideas or search for a specific ingredient or term.

Since they are on the Internet, you can check them from any computer, like if you are visiting family or on a trip, or view them on a smart phone, like if you see a sale in the store and want to see ideas of what you can make.  And if your friends use Say Mmm you can get ideas from them and swap recipes with a few clicks.  Take a look at how it works in the video below.

There are a couple ways to add and track meal and restaurant ideas on Say Mmm.  Add as you go by entering ideas into your plan, and we remember these ideas for later, so you can look through them and the next time you start typing you just need to enter a few letters to bring up the meal.

Sometimes you may want to put a group of ideas in at once, so we have added a simple way to do this.  As you type in the ideas we dynamically show you any meals that match what you are typing so you don’t have to wonder if you already entered the idea or not.  Plus, you can click any of these ideas to easily add a new combination of side dishes to go along with the main dish.

For restaurants, just add the restaurant name, and using your zip code in your settings we will automatically find the information and map for the restaurant.  Or if you are looking for a place in a different city or state, just click to change the location.  Also, you don’t need to have the exact city…as long as its close or within 50 miles it should work.  After adding a restaurant you can easily add notes, ratings and a category if you like. 

When you want to look through your meal or restaurant (or recipe) ideas, you can scroll through them or search for something specific, and we group similar meal combinations for you.  From there you can click on the meal to add it to your plan, edit it, add new combinations, see when you had it last, or see the recipe you have associated with the meal.  

It all starts with an idea, but that is just the beginning.  Say Mmm makes its simple to enter and remember your meal ideas in one place…it doesn’t take long to get your favorite ideas in to start with and you can easily add to your list as you think of new ideas. 

Once you have ideas in there at your fingertips, Say Mmm has features to make your life easier.  Save time by just clicking to add a meal to your plan or have your shopping list remember what you need to get.  And you can add a recipe or link to a recipe so you don’t have to search around for it when you need it…its right there.

We have just recently added some more features for meals to make it more fun and useful.  Ever wondered when you had a meal last?  Now it is easy to see your history of when you had your meal and the individual dishes and sides in the meal along with any notes or photos you had related to the meal.  All you have to do is have your meal in your plan calendar.  This history feature works for your restaurants as well…we liked how it worked there so we extended it to meals.

Also new for meals is you can see related combinations in the same place, and easily add new combinations to switch things up a little.  One other new feature is we made it easier to see any recipes you have associated with a meal or add new recipes or links to recipes you want to have linked to a meal.

It is interesting how a single sound can convey a range of meanings or feelings depending on tone and context. There is the deep, rich “Mmm…I am loving this,” the quicker, high pitched “Mmm…that is interesting,” and the tentative, wavering “Mmm…I am not sure” to name a few. There are also the cousins “Hmmm” and “Ummm” that produce their own variations, and if you flip the mmms upside down you get the anti-Mmm – “Ewww”.

With the opening up of the Say Mmm service to beta users, we are eagerly awaiting the types of Mmms we might hear. Emotionally its like serving a meal to important guests, where you are both excited to share what you have made and also nervous about whether it turned out right. Its also like learning to cook well though, where you get better as you try things.

Say Mmm is currently a beta version, which means that some things are not as smooth as they should be, and a few things might not work or make sense here and there. There are a lot of helpful and fun things the service does though, so we encourage people that like to explore and play with new things to check it out. We are continually improving the service and would love to hear feedback, both good and bad.

If you are interested in signing up, you can click on the Get Started button on www.saymmm.com, where you can also see a visual tour of the service. You can also see some videos on Say Mmm in action at www.saymmm.com/howitworks.php

Be sure to check back here for the latest news on Say Mmm or add this blog to your RSS feeds.

Brian Hutchins
Founder