Hi all,
We need everyone’s help in writing to your local food writers about Hungry Onion as an alternative to Chowhound. Obviously many of us came from Chowhound and had great memories about our conversations on Chowhound. But good things come to an end unfortunately. And I’d like to invite as many folks over to continue the conversations here on HO.
If you recall the start of HO, we benefited immensely from outreach to the press during the 2015 turmoil and got a few valuable press mentions that brought a large influx of members to help us build up the community here. East Bay Express, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times. With that said, a small site such as ours with no marketing budget don’t really have great means to attract large number of new users in normal times. And we do need new members to compensate for loss of existing members over time.
That’s why we need your help in writing your local food writers now. Local newspaper, local Eater, etc. If you can let them know we at Hungry Onion have thriving discussions about dining and cooking, and would welcome any Chowhound users, that’d be much appreciated!!! Some of them may be writing articles this week about Chowhound’s closure so love to be mentioned as much as we can.
Also please invite anyone you know on Chowhound!!!
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This will be the template I will use. Please feel free to adapt as needed if you can write to your local food writers.
Hi xxxxx,
This is xxxxxx, the xxxxxx of the not-for-profit food discussion site Hungry Onion. As you may have heard, Chowhound, the food discussion site that was highly popular and hugely influential in the 00’s/ early 10’s, is closing its door on March 21 after 20+ years in operation. If you are writing an article on this topic this week, I want to share with you Hungry Onion as an alternative to Chowhound for its users.
A few tidbits about Hungry Onion:
- We aren’t for profit- Its a site for users who are passionate about discussing food- whether its dining out and cooking. We run on a monthly budget of <$100 with a small group of volunteers. We exist because we love food.
- We started in September 2015, when Chowhound had a site redesign that caused a huge uproar amongst its user base back then. Press coverage back then on the topic and Hungry Onion on Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, East Bay Express. I myself was a regular Chowhound user until 2015.
- We spent our effort nurturing and cultivating the community in our discussion forum.
Please let me know if I can be of any help should you decide to write an article on Chowhound. Cheers.
xxxxxxxxxxx.
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So far, I’ve written to these national publications:
Sam Sifton of NYTimes
Joe Yonan of Washington Post
Alice Short of LA Times
Devra First of Boston Globe
Lauren Starke, Amani Orr of Eater/ Vox
Any other good ideas or publications to write to?
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You could try the food websites, like Epicurious, Food52, Broken Palate.
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If HO has accounts with FB, IG, Twitter etc def announce it there.
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