How and why do people store recipes?

Many ways and reasons. Some people create recipes and write them down. They're a minority, but there are still many of them. The majority of people simply find recipes in various places (magazines, friends, etc.) and cut them out or write them down and file them. But most people will customise those recipes when they make them, and usually try to remember/save their customisations. They also have a big problem finding their recipes later -- where in the house? which file/book? where in the book?

Forkd helps with all the above scenarios.

Photos

Photos play a key role in Forkd, tying in with the massive growth of digital photography. It leverages Flickr, a phenomenally popular photo sharing site owned by Yahoo!, whose API is designed to make it easy to "mash up" its content with other web services. This intimate relationship between the two sites also prevents them from competing for users' loyalty, diluting the user's online presence and reputation and duplicating their effort: rather, they support each other.

However, Forkd doesn't require Flickr, as we allow users to upload as many photos to the site as they wish, directly.

Folksonomy

Rather than a traditional hierarchical classification system based on a predefined taxonomy, Forkd (like Flickr) uses "tags" to organise recipes for re-findability. These could be ingredients ("carrot"), types ("starter"), cuisine ("asian"), or words with entirely personal meanings ("grandma", "summerparty06"). This makes it much easier for contributors, allowing them to classify things the way that makes sense to them -- hence the moniker, "folksonomy". When browsing recipes, it also promotes serindipity, making the site more fun.

Clicking on a tag will bring up recipes using that tag or synonyms, as well as related tags, as well as (coming soon) a Wikipedia-powered definition. Tags can easily be combined (say, the entire contents of your fridge), or if you prefer you could simply do a search.

Tags can be entered using an AJAX-based text field, or the "tag brush" tool makes it quick to add tags that appear in the recipe. Simply turn it on and double-click or drag-select the words you wish to turn into tags.

What is the essence of folksonomy-powered online communities?

• Community-created content where contributors retain ownership of their content
• Community-created metadata (tags)
• Metadata with clear value to the user -- not just good for organisation (that too), but enables discovery, fun

Interaction design and AJAX

Forkd is designed to be as easy and enjoyable to use as possible. For most simple interactions with the page (e.g. adding or re-ordering photos), we use AJAX methods to make it feel as close as possible to a desktop application, with dynamic dialog boxes, drag and drop, and no screen refreshes.

Forking

A 'Fork' is (at first) analogous to a 'Favourite' (e.g. Flickr's 'Fave'). But there's a key difference. On a photo site, if you like someone else's photo, it's OK to simply save a link to it, which is what a Fave does. On the other hand, if you cut out, photocopy or write down someone else's recipe, it becomes yours. It should never matter if the original is ever deleted. It's yours to customise, and describe, and photograph, and for others to copy from you, from then on.

When you Fork someone's recipe, you copy it. It's like you've stuck a fork in it. It's yours whether you customise it or not. But critically, the original author is justly rewarded, in community terms. The "family tree" of a recipe is always available. A recipe would clearly show "Forked from..." -- showing the avatar of the immediate parent and links to all previous -- and "Forked by..." These become lines that trace influence and reputation, lines that can be navigated. For this reason, recipes are published by default under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike license. (Other licenses, including All Rights Reserved, will also be available.)

So when I Fork a recipe, I could simply be saving it. But it could also become "my version". A vegetarian version, say, or a less spicy version, and so on. Cumulatively, additional value builds up around a recipe, so you can easily find variations, and other people's photos of the same dish.

As a happy coincidence, "Forking" also means something very similar in geekdom. (The analogy referring to a fork in the road.)

Other features

These features are pretty standard within community sites and photography sites.

• Sets (coming soon)
  These are collections of recipes, and the same recipe can appear in more than one Set. In the world of Forkd, a Set could mean a Meal, or a Diet, and so on. E.g. "Romantic 3-course dinner" or "My New Year's Resolution Diet" or "Easy Japanese food" or "Handed down from Grandma", etc.
• Groups (coming soon)
  As with Flickr, Groups are much the same as Sets, albeit Sets to which many people can contribute. They also support discussions. And again like Flickr, you have no idea what they'll end up being used for. (E.g. "Blue food", "Food for fussy kids", "Diabetic/allergy/low-fat diets", Food challenges, etc.)
• Contacts (including privacy & Friends & Family settings)
• Personal Profile, including Avatar (a picture representing you)
• Comments. All recipes will have a comment thread, showing avatars
• Ratings. Users can rate recipes from 1-5 stars.