A-Lone Diner Event Special: iPick's Super Secret Bash

Actually, I kinda forgotten that I said yes to attending this event in order to catch up with some friends and so I took to a Whatsapp group that I'm in to see if I was invited from there. Someone over there sorta convinced me that it was at Facebook that I said yes to this event and so I went ahead and RSVP the email that I gotten.

I made it a point so I will be there to pass some goodies to my friends as well so there's an extra motivation for me to go. Else I would just be too lazy to go all out to a place that's unfamiliar to me and the pressure of being sociable among people and also the uncomfortable ridicule I get from some people I know.

Anyway, good thing my friend reminded me of the actual time else I would've thought the end time was the start time of the event. LOL. So I got there and greeted some fellow friends and had the lunch that they provided over there. I didn't know that there was a contest that was held prior to the event where you snap photos and put it on Instagram and hashtag it and you may be pick to be on display at the event. During the event, people will vote for the best picture that's on display and the winner will get something extra.

This event is actually about Tencent's (the company from China that developed WeChat) new mobile application called the iPick. The iPick is an application that's kinda like the combination of Foursquare and Instagram where you can search for food places, rate it, post photos of it and also to create meetup with friends in a specific restaurant of choice in that app. The problem I have with the app at the moment is that it's slow to load and it's tied to a social app that I never use even though I have an account, WeChat. So, there's nothing social that I have about it because I don't have any friends on it. LOL. Also, so far I'm not seeing a lot of updates on recommendations and their blog except for the blog entries that are fed to them where most of it are the ones I'm familiar with. So there's no motivation for me to visit it to get ideas on where to go. But then again, this app is at it's early stages. If there's more people contributing to it, who knows, it may grow better. But right now, it's not my go to app for place recommendation like how Foursquare is to me sometimes.

Currently, there's also no way to add a restaurant if it's unlisted in there. I also see a lack of other social media integration like how Instagram can easily post to some of the commonly used social media apps once you've posted your photos.

The event also got around with the attendees playing a game that revolves around the iPick app. We're split into groups preassigned and take on challenges as a group to perform tasks with regards to the iPick app. Though after the lunch, we did see a few that had left even before it got to this stage.

I left as soon as the event ended and it was goodbye to friends over there.