KeepRecipes creates an iTunes for cookbooks — Tech News and Analysis

... launched an “iTunes for recipes” on Friday, in hopes of building an online marketplace for culinary ideas where cooks and gastronomic publishers can buy and sell individual digital recipe cards and eventually whole cookbooks.

KeepRecipes is starting out small. It has signed deals to distribute the contents of five cookbooks from two publishers, Gooseberry Patch’s ...

... cookbook series. The site is also hosting individual recipes from seven famous chefs and authors, including Masaharu Morimoto of ...

... food columnist and cookbook writer Mark Bittman, giving the portal’s members access to 1,000 different dishes, priced at 99 cents each. But CEO and founder Phil Michaelson said he is hoping he can build off that small core of cuisine, proving to publishers that there is money to be made distributing their cookbooks online and convincing consumers that some online recipes are worth paying for.

The comparison to iTunes isn’t just a gimmick. It is uncanny how closely KeepRecipes is following Apple’s music distribution model, all the way down to direct integration with the iPhone. The recipes are bought and stored through KeepRecipes online portal, where they can be sorted and searched, organized into collections — recipe playlists, if you will — and shared with up to five friends in the KeepRecipes community. A mobile app allows members to access their collections through the iPhone.