Restaurant guidebook links to online content for fresh reviews

Bringing the online and offline worlds together is a rich source of opportunity for publishers, combining the tangible benefits and convenience of physical ownership with the opportunity to deliver up-to-the-minute content. Bringing this concept to the restaurant guide, Italian 2Spaghi.it has launched the SpagoGuida 2011, a physical directory of restaurants that links to online reviews. The guide is available from the company’s website for EUR 15.90, and offers listings of over 1,000 restaurants throughout Italy. Each listing is provided with a QR code, which — when scanned by a smartphone with the appropriate software — links to that restaurant’s page on the 2Spaghi.it website. These pages are populated with user-generated content, providing the reader with the latest opinions from the 2Spaghi.it community and allowing them to provide feedback on their own experience. There are over 50,000 restaurants listed on 2Spaghi.it — a fact that highlights the limitations of printing a traditional guidebook. However, rather than focusing on the limitations of the format, the challenge for the creators of SpagoGuida will be to offer their users the best of both worlds… Spotted by: Deanna Lawrence