Jeff Bennett's Blog

The calls of iPhone-wielding foodies have been answered as OpenTable is now available. I have used OpenTable for years as a time efficient way to scan several restaurants for reservation availability at home in Boston but also while traveling. I featured OpenTable as a Jeff Bennett Blog “Cool Site” last month but with this launch OpenTable is taking it to the next level.

OpenTable is a real-time system, it instantly informs you of which restaurants have availability, which are completely booked, and which have openings only in certain time slots. You don’t have to spend time calling 15 locations before you find one willing to seat your party. If you eat out religiously, you can eventually accumulate enough that can be redeemed for an OpenTable gift certificate good towards your bill at participating restaurants.

Upon launching the OpenTable iPhone application, you can either select a location manually or allow the software to use your iPhone’s Location Services feature to bring up a group of restaurants in your general area. From there, the process is fairly straight froward. OpenTable is surely a “cool site” on the web and it is now taking advantage of all of the power of the iPhone with it’s new application to enhance it’s functionality.

On a related note, the iPhone App Store also released a new app for Zagat’s. Now you can access the two premier dining resources for U.S. residents — Zagat, the de facto restaurant rating guide, and OpenTable, the real-time online reservation service. This iPhone is getting better every day.

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