A COUNTY Durham cookery website has attracted more than 900 members, two months after it was launched.
Thanks to web designers at Gateshead's Industrial Strength, Durham businessman Alan Lowery set up sizzledish.com, an online community where people from everyday cooks to wannabe Gordon Ramsey's can share their love of food and cooking.
The members, called Sizzlers, rate recipes, type in ingredients to get ideas for meals and create their own cookbook of favourites. The Sizzlers can also build up followers, similar to sites such as Twittter, and upload video clips of themselves cooking in their kitchen.
Mr Lowry took his idea to the team at Industrial Strength, which created an online strategy and business plan to secure funding, before developing and launching the website.
Lee Milmore, creative director of Industrial Strength, said: “Alan had a fantastic business idea for an online community of food-lovers, and just needed the right help in how to go about making his idea a reality.
“Creating a strong webbased business is not just about producing a goodlooking website. It’s important to think strategically about what the objectives are, and how they can be achieved through digital tools.
“The resulting website should strike just the right balance between functionality, useful content and the revenuegenerating tools that make it a viable business.”
Article taken from The Northern Echo, Thursday 21st October 2010
