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Students able to text food orders

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by Courtney Johnson

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Students now have a new venue to order food while in class. CampusFood.com, an online network of restaurants, will now accept text messages for food orders.

Website users can also set up a "one-touch ordering system" by programming their favorite orders into their online accounts. Both services will be free to registered users.

"This idea really came from our users," said Julie Shimshack, spokesperson for CampusFood.com. "We always get feedback from customers asking for different things, whether it be a restaurant or a new feature, and text messaging orders came up more often than anything else."

Shimshack said the company started testing this feature a while ago, and a trial version has been up since early this year. The feature is intended to help customers who would like to place orders in class or while running errands, so the order will be ready more quickly.

"I'm not always by a computer, so that would definitely be really convenient because I always have my phone with me," said University of Wisconsin junior Nicole Allen.

But some students are not sure if this new feature will make ordering food any easier.

"I think it would just be a little bit more of a hassle," senior Tiffany Atkins said. "If you have the number, it would be much quicker just to call and tell them what you wanted — we're trying to move towards convenience, and we're making way for things that are illogical."

UW junior Julia MacCallum agreed and expressed concern about the increased cost of using the text-message service.

"It costs money for me to text message," MacCallum said. "It's not too hard to call somebody and just say what I want."

However, Shimshack said the testing of the new online ordering system has gone very well since its launch, and several major cell phone companies have signed onto the service — including Verizon, Cingular, T-Mobile and Sprint.

"In fact, I use it on almost a daily basis myself," Shimshack said.

Currently, CampusFood.com provides online ordering for 17 restaurants in the campus area, including Asian Kitchen and Silver Mine Subs.

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