Wine Social Networks? Hardly.
Just for "fun," I went ahead and signed up for accounts at pretty much all the "major" wine 2.0 websites the last couple of weeks and have noted some strikingly absent features at all of them that just astounds me.
For starters, a social network of any value has to enable people to browse other people's profiles and befriend them/communicate with them easily.
Second, the members of a social network have to be able to have conversations about whatever niche their social network fills.
So here's my list of wine-centric "web 2.0" sites:
Cork'd
Features: Wine tasting notes entry, cellar tracking, searching wines and tasting notes.
(innovative element: wine library tv is great.)
Snooth
Features: "Personalized Wine Recommendations"
Bottlenotes
Features: Tasting notes, cellar tracking, recommendations & wine club sales.
Bottletalk
Features: Tasting notes, wine sales, cellar tracking, same old same old - EXCEPT you can kind of browse members. I was momentarily encouraged by the name "BottleTALK" thinking it might be a place you could actually discuss wines or regions, etc, but I would be wrong.
Not a single one of these sites have an easy way (or any way unless I was missing it) to easily carry on conversations in the space.
At any rate, highly discouraging.
Now, before I run off and set up a smokin' social network of our own (which honestly is not part of our core business) using KickApps fantastic white-label platform (I worked a bit with these guys over a year ago putting together social network demo's for television shows we were producing - great product and easy to launch an awesome service on), Larry Lee tells me "Hey, you can do that on WineZap."
Really?
Isn't WineZap for "Finding, Pricing & Comparing" wines? Yep.
And there's our (new) friend Michael Stajer, doing it right, again.
Right at the top of the page is a menu option that says "TALK" - and Talk you can! That link immediately puts you in a place to start a new conversation about wines. You can do videos, join and start your own subgroups, etc.
THIS is a wine social network, and a well-done one at that (right on Michael!). It just blows me away that the sites claiming to be the new "Wine 2.0" social networks are totally missing the boat, and WineZap's e-commerce site is hitting all the right notes.
Want to find, AND TALK about wines? Go to WineZap NOW and sign up!
For starters, a social network of any value has to enable people to browse other people's profiles and befriend them/communicate with them easily.
Second, the members of a social network have to be able to have conversations about whatever niche their social network fills.
So here's my list of wine-centric "web 2.0" sites:
Cork'd
Features: Wine tasting notes entry, cellar tracking, searching wines and tasting notes.
(innovative element: wine library tv is great.)
Snooth
Features: "Personalized Wine Recommendations"
Bottlenotes
Features: Tasting notes, cellar tracking, recommendations & wine club sales.
Bottletalk
Features: Tasting notes, wine sales, cellar tracking, same old same old - EXCEPT you can kind of browse members. I was momentarily encouraged by the name "BottleTALK" thinking it might be a place you could actually discuss wines or regions, etc, but I would be wrong.
Not a single one of these sites have an easy way (or any way unless I was missing it) to easily carry on conversations in the space.
At any rate, highly discouraging.
Now, before I run off and set up a smokin' social network of our own (which honestly is not part of our core business) using KickApps fantastic white-label platform (I worked a bit with these guys over a year ago putting together social network demo's for television shows we were producing - great product and easy to launch an awesome service on), Larry Lee tells me "Hey, you can do that on WineZap."
Really?
Isn't WineZap for "Finding, Pricing & Comparing" wines? Yep.
And there's our (new) friend Michael Stajer, doing it right, again.
Right at the top of the page is a menu option that says "TALK" - and Talk you can! That link immediately puts you in a place to start a new conversation about wines. You can do videos, join and start your own subgroups, etc.
THIS is a wine social network, and a well-done one at that (right on Michael!). It just blows me away that the sites claiming to be the new "Wine 2.0" social networks are totally missing the boat, and WineZap's e-commerce site is hitting all the right notes.
Want to find, AND TALK about wines? Go to WineZap NOW and sign up!
Labels: bottlenotes, bottletalk, corkd, snooth, social networking, wine, wine 2.0, winezap
posted by Jon Lawrence | 4:13 PM
4 Comments:
Jon, have you seen (or heard) about Wine Target? (www.winetarget.com) It's a new wine information and social networking site and it's pretty slick. Check it if you get the chance.
Hi Jon,
I just found out about another new wine social networking site from a friend of a friend called WineSocieties (www.winesocieties.com)
I haven't spent much time there yet, but it does allow members to connect and communicate with each other and has a marketplace for buying and selling wine.
Cheers!
WineTarget looks interesting, but is still light on content. Thanks for keeping the eyes open and the reference!
WineTarget has an interesting feature allowing you to see wineries and vineyards by State and county. However, they apparently can only list 17, so you barely make it to the letter "C" for counties like Sonoma and Napa. I never found a way to scroll.
And apparently, you don;t have to be a winery or vineyard, since I saw listings for wedding planners and accountants.
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