Mfarhanonline Social Media News: The Social-Savvy Food Truck Series is supported by the Ben and Jerry’s Scoop Truck . For more information on the scoop truck and where it stops, click here . Unless you live under a rock (that is, a rock without cable TV), you’ve probably noticed the food truck phenomenon that has made meals on wheels chic and inspired several shows on the Food Network. But while food trucks may be booming , stationary restaurants still have one distinct advantage: You know where to find them. When struck with a craving for tacos, it’s easier to Google the Mexican restaurant down the street than to track down a Kogi Korean BBQ truck . Using Twitter feeds, GPS and truck-reported location data, several apps are aiming to even the reliability playing field by plotting gourmet food trucks on mobile maps. None of them have achieved an exhaustive or completely accurate system, but depending on where you live, these five apps will give you a much better shot at tracking down your favorite mobile meals. 1. Food Truck Fiesta Food Truck Fiesta is a simple $.99 iPhone and Android app based on a blog of the same name. The site posts updates about new food trucks and food-truck events, maintains a catalog of food trucks and tracks trucks on a live map using their Twitter feeds. The app is basically the map in mobile form. Clicking a truck’s location pulls up its Twitter feed. 2. Eat St. Food Network’s Eat St . show highlights the most innovative mobile cuisine in North America. Its free iPhone and Android apps are attempting to help viewers track down gourmet meals on wheels near them. With somewhat of a different approach than most of the food-tracking apps on the market, Eat St. allows food truck owners to update their own locations, menus, hours and profiles. Other food trucks can be added by users, but their profiles remai! n barren and their locations dubious. “We're devoted to finding new ways to keep locations accurate and are constantly improving,” reads the current app description . “In the meantime, the most accurate cities are those with mostly stationary food carts. L.A., New York, Miami and San Francisco have mainly roaming food carts and while the database has grown, it's best to get location from the carts' Twitter feed.” These limitations aren’t unlike those of most food truck tracking apps — Eat St. just seems to be more honest about them. 3. Roaming Hunger Like Food Truck Fiesta, Roaming Hunger is a blog that chronicles food truck news and events. Its scope is much larger than L.A., however, and its catalog includes a smattering of trucks in most major cities. The free iPhone app uses tweets and calendars to keep track of the trucks. You can search for trucks near you, those recently tweeted, most liked, savory, sweet or vegetarian. It also allows you to plan ahead by searching for trucks that are open at different times. Because it covers many cities, its library isn’t as extensive as some city-specific apps, and like most apps that rely on Twitter and calendars, its map points represent predictions rather than actual locations. 4. Road Stoves GPS L.A.-based RoadStoves sells food trucks and books food trucks for promotions and events. Its free iPhone and Android apps use actual GPS location to track food trucks. This makes its map one of the most accurate, but also one of the most sparse. Most of its trucks are in Los Angeles, and only about 15 of them are GPS-enabled. The app makes it easy to access the Twitter feeds and menus of other trucks, but it doesn’t put them on them on the map. 5. TruxMap Lite Food Truck Map TruxMap’s free iPhone and Android apps plot open food trucks near you in green, and soon-to-open food trucks in blue. It uses the trucks’ Twitter feeds to track and plot their locations. The app makers say they’re tracking trucks in! 21 citi es, but the majority of them are in Los Angeles, Austin and New York. Users can request new trucks be added to the app via the website. Series Supported by Ben and Jerry’s Scoop Truck The Social-Savvy Food Truck Series is supported by the Ben and Jerry’s Scoop Truck. In New York City or San Francisco and want a free scoop? Follow @BenJerrysTruck and @BenJerrysWest for details! Photo courtesy of Flickr, alykat More About: apps , Food truck , mobile apps , Social-Savvy Food Truck Series For more Mobile coverage: Follow Mfarhanonline Mobile on Twitter Become a Fan on Facebook Subscribe to the Mobile channel Download our free apps for Android , Mac , iPhone and iPad Social Media reviews series maintain by Mayya
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