How the Infatuation Takes a Human, Journalistic Approach to Restaurant Recs
*By Carlo Versano*
The internet is awash in restaurant reviews. Just ask anyone who's ever been paralyzed by the feeling of indecision when searching for a new place to eat. The Infatuation was created to apply some method to the madness. The restaurant review and recommendation service, founded by a pair of music executives a decade ago, uses "situational" recommendations with the belief that not all restaurant experiences are the same.
Chris Stang, one of The Infatuation's founders, broke down that concept on Cheddar Wednesday. User reviews can be useful, he said, but what's more important is the ability to choose a place to dine based on a handful of metrics: the situation, the location, the experience, and the price.
After all, picking a restaurant for a first date is a different endeavor than picking a restaurant for date night with your spouse.
The Infatuation prides itself on its clear point of view ー its "voice" ー which users can't get from user-generated review platforms like Yelp, or Google. (The Infatuation acquired the Zagat brand from Google last year.) Those sites, with their pages of user ratings, can leave diners with a law of averages ー "4 stars for everything" ー that isn't particularly valuable.
The Infatuation's editorial team operates like a journalistic enterprise: the reviewers dine anonymously on the company's dime, and they visit more than once. The idea, Stang said, is to attempt to replicate the experience a regular diner would have.
A couple years back, The Infatuation expanded on its human approach with a service called Text Rex that allows users to message an Infatuation reviewer for a real-time restaurant recommendation based on the specific situation at hand ー a business meeting in a new neighborhood, perhaps.
The founding principle: help diners find value when eating out, Stang said. "Is your hard-earned money being well spent at this restaurant?"
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/restaurant-advice-on-demand).
An independent watchdog within the IRS reports that while taxpayer services have vastly improved, the agency is still too slow to resolve identity theft cases. And National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins says those delays are “unconscionable.” Erin M. Collins said in the report released Wednesday that overall the 2024 filing season went smoothly, though IRS delays in resolving identity theft victim assistance cases are worsening. It took nearly 19 months to resolve self-reported identity theft cases as of January, and Wednesday's report states that now it takes 22 months to resolve these cases.
Amazon.com Inc. surpassed $2 trillion in market value for the first time in afternoon trading on Wednesday. The push higher for Amazon’s stock market valuation comes a little more than a week after Nvidia hit $3 trillion and briefly became the most valuable company on Wall Street. Nvidia’s chips are used to power many AI application and its valuation has soared as a result. Amazon has also been making big investments in AI as global interest has grown in the technology. Most of the company’s focus has been on business-focused products.
Climate change doesn’t just mean more extreme weather – it also leads to billions of dollars in lost productivity, tourism, and stresses infrastructure.
It’s an annual tradition: the Fed’s banking ‘stress test.’ A year after the regional banking crisis, there are good reasons to make sure they’re prepped.
