Welcome to another What Does Manna Do? update! This week we will be discussing one of the most powerful pieces of technology in the app: The Cooking GPS – which lays our ingredients and step by step directions together in a succinct and logical way to best serve you while you actually try cooking the recipe. No more scrolling back and forth between ingredients and directions with your hands covered in flour. The Cooking GPS provides all the information you need to complete each step as you arrive there in the recipe. You can also view all directions or ingredients easily from the Cooking GPS, just like your car GPS.
Last week, we talked about the Manna Scanner, particularly its ability to bring recipes in from outside the app and digest them into our proprietary format. Now we get to see the magic at work in our Cooking GPS. Every recipe found in the app, either uploaded manually or through the Manna Scanner automatically has Cooking GPS functionality. Once you’ve added and selected the recipe our proprietary back end does the rest. Just like a GPS, plug in where you’re going and we’ll guide you every step of the way.
The Cooking GPS is a key value proposition in the design of the app, so the intention is to continue to improve the experience both visually and functionally. In the short term we will add functionality which automatically detects when a direction has a time component and sets an in app timer for you at the click of a button. Visual Updates like improved design and images for each step is also something currently in the works. We hope to one day pair with alexa and google home to provide hands free direction and ingredients to really bring the home cooking space into the future.
Not only is Cooking GPS valuable to users but enables a unique monetization scheme. When a user is using Cooking GPS they are fully engaged with the material in front of them. This is the perfect place to serve a high engagement ad. However, as millennials, we are deeply aware that we can’t alienate users with ads especially when they might be doing something time sensitive in the kitchen. This is where the true strength of the Cooking GPS lies; it knows where you are in the recipe and will serve you a high engagement video ad at the appropriate times. Finished up the recipe? Set an oven timer for 30 minutes? Waiting for water to boil? These are all high engagement yet non-invasive times to serve ads. Promising our users a seamless experience and our partners high ad engagement has never been easier.
Guy Greenstein
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