Method for digital recipe library and food image recognition services

A method for providing a food- and recipe-sharing service comprising:

• according to a schedule or an event, automatically polling a camera roll of a first mobile device for new images and, for each respective new image, creating a reduced-size image of the new image and providing the reduced-size image to a server;
• at the server, creating one or more dish objects based on the reduced-size images of the new images using a process comprising:
• receiving, at the server, the reduced-size images;
• determining whether each respective reduced-size image depicts food, and if food is depicted:
• determining classification information about the respective depicted food, wherein the classification information comprises a type of food;
• creating a respective new dish object by setting one or more attributes of the new dish object using the classification information about the depicted food and the corresponding respective reduced-size image, wherein each new dish object comprises the respective reduced-size image and a reference to a user that created the image;
• otherwise, if food is not depicted;
• not processing the respective reduced-size image further;
• receiving, at the server and a request from the first mobile device or a second mobile device, a request for dish objects associated with a specified type of food for presentation in a first user interface of the requesting first or second mobile device showing representations of the dish objects;
• identifying, at the server, one or more dish objects that satisfy the request, wherein a respective dish object is determined to satisfy the request if the specified type of food is similar to one or more attributes associated with the dish object;
• and
• in response to the request, providing the one or more identified dish objects to the first or second mobile device for presentation in the first user interface.