PDXFoodpress Gling Write-Up!

Great article in Portland Food & Drink announcing the Gling launch!

Gling Launches Social Media Startup Targeting Gluten-Free Community

Sep 22nd, 09

Vancouver, Wash., —– Gling (http://www.gling.com), a new Social Media startup targeting consumers in the Gluten-free community, launched today as a free service leveraging a rich combination of Recipes, Foods and Locations along with original Articles, a Blog Network and a hefty backbone of social networking features.

“When my family joined the Gluten-free world 7 years ago, there was very little information on the web or real ideas for how people can drop something as pervasive as Gluten,” said CEO and Founder Mike Lee. “Today, unfortunately, it isn’t much easier. There is no shortage of Gluten free sites, but consumers like us still have difficulty finding an online resource that not only informs them, but also equips average people with tools to make dining choices today for a tricky diet choice. ‘How do I hold onto recipes or my favorite locations?’ With Gling, you can do so much more of what people actually need and use each day.”

“The trouble for most consumers who try to tackle Gluten-free living is that most of the sites they find overload them with data rather than real information about how to shop at their local grocery stores, or how to order from the menu at an average restaurant,” said Lee.

Gling was built with both an eye towards data, and an eye on a clean, fresh design. “Most Gluten-free people have expressed a desire for a site that is fun and pretty,” Lee said. “It is important that our application offer more than just data. It must also present an interface that is a blast to surf. I think people will enjoy it!”

The purpose of Gling is to go beyond information and to help consumers make real purchase decisions around food products and local restaurants. In addition to tools designed to maximize food and locations research, members can also track activity from around the site on their central “Home” page.

Gling’s marketing slogan, You + Me = Gluten-free, describes the goal of unifying consumers, ideas and information. Gling is a social network, but connecting people with original content in the form of Articles and the Blog Network is a fundamental strategy for helping consumers make real life decisions.

When a user logs into their account, they are greeted by an Activity Stream-organized “Home” page which details activity from people they are connected to in Gling. This allows them to see the most recent information across various features throught the site and access the latest ideas shared by other members who may know about new developments in the Gluten-free world and new ideas for recipes to create or locations to visit.

The three major features of the application are a Recipes Database, a Foods Database and a Locations Database. Individual ingredients within a recipe connect to their corresponding record in the Foods Database, allowing members to research at fine grain detail by clicking on the ingredient and moving to the record in the Foods Database, which lists any recipes that contain that ingredient.

The Locations Database is a great place for members to store their favorite Gluten-free stores, restaurants and bakeries. Members’ profiles include a map with pins for locations in their neighborhood so they can quickly view places near them to shop for Gluten-free foods and dine at Gluten-free restaurants.

“Even though Gling is built to emphasize real-world food, recipes and locations activity,” says Lee, “a primary focus for Gling is articles and stories written by real people.”

Gling employs a sharp team of writers from the Gluten-free world and the Articles page contains rich stories from these people. In addition to that, however, Gling offers a Gluten-free Blog Network of well-known Bloggers, including GlutenfreeAnna, GlutenFreeEasily, GlutenFreeMike, DelightfullyGlutenFree and DitchtheGluten.

Lee says, “It has never been my goal with this application to try and say Gling is the only answer for Gluten-free information. Rather, Gling was built as a tool to store information and to connect the thousands and thousands of people who know more about the diet than I do. Gling is all about Gluten-free-ers and what they need and know. It’s about real people.”

To truly unify all of this content, Gling also offers a hefty social networking backbone. An internal Twitter clone allows for site-wide conversation. Tribes are available for users to create around specific interests and discussions. Gling also offers a central page of Bookmarks for links from around the web, Blogs for any members to share their experience and a Photos section for members to post food or event photos.

To further bring all of this content back to the “Home” page, all Recipes, Foods, Locations, Blogs, Articles and most other features include commenting which appears in a user’s activity stream of friends.

“It’s exciting to hear from the many excited people who are joining Gling and using it to connect with other people,” says Lee.

Gling is being used by consumers to connect, find and share creative ideas. Bloggers in the foodie and diet world are excited about Gling as a blog network for people interested in niche diets. And manufacturer’s and corporations are eager to use Gling as a way to learn what Gluten-free consumers want in new products.

With Gluten-free retail spending growing at 30% annually, Gling is helping the Gluten-free world unify around a diet lifestyle that more consumers are joining. The retail market was $1.2B in 2008 and is slated to crest $2.3B in 2012.

For more information, contact Mike Lee (CEO/Founder) or Anthony Fender (Content & Marketing Coordinator) at 360.254.7010.