As you will have noticed from my last post, and if you have been following me on twitter, I’ve been exploring some video resources as means to spread the love and culture of wine. I decided it might be useful to share some links, and some thoughts, on some of those I have come across in case you are thinking of doing the same. If you are, send me a link to let me know.

Here is a short list (it could be much longer) of resources I am either using or looking at, which I am arbitrarily splitting in two, plus links to videos I’ve made, or been involved in on each.

First, those video sites where you share pre-recorded (& hopefully edited) videos:

YouTube

Sample: Professional Wine Tasting

The BIG video site. It is a massive site with lots of reach, so a great place to upload your video if you want it easily available. However, there are some limitations. It can be a maximum of 10 minutes long, it is one amongst millions (and millions) and although there is a healthy community effect which encourages comments and votes, it can equally turn nasty and childish. However, any wine communicator ought to have their own place on YouTube to upload and share videos.

Vimeo (Sample: Bibendum Wine Tasting) & Viddler (Sample: The Road to Rioja)

I’m sure that their respective CEOs would give me a long list of their unique features, but essentially they offer the same service. A smaller, more focused community within the sites themselves, but more importantly, the opportunity to upload longer videos if you need to (which you probably don’t, by the way). One neat feature of Viddler is the opportunity for you and your viewers to add comments linked to specific points in a video. Worth checking out.

TwitVid

(Sample: The video above on this post)

I’ve yet to use this, but if you have a short video you want to share with your twitter followers, you can upload it to this site and have it sent out to your followers. I think this made the list (i.e. I became conscious of it) because it was one of the first to be available for the iPhone 3GS. There are plenty of similar sites out there, but the key is to upload fun, social content that pretty much anyone will enjoy.

The second category of video sharing sites allow you less scope to edit, but offer more spontaneity and in some cases LIVE streaming:

Seesmic

Sample: Enough is Enough

I’ll deal with this first as it is a bit of an anomaly. This is a more interactive site than those in the previous category. In fact it is more of a discussion forum with video, where the whole point of the videos are to begin conversations with other users who record their replies in video format.

I separate it also because in reality, it is a community in itself. Most wine consumers are not at all interested in recording videos of themselves, so users on here are mainly reaching out to a very specific community

12seconds.tv

Sample: Music to Pour wines by at tapas fantasticas

Now it gets fun. Think recording a video is difficult, you don’t know what to say, how to edit it, upload it and promote it? Well, don’t bother. All you get are 12 seconds of recording, and the site does the rest. Perfect for fun, trivia, quick insights, stolen moments (ahem), etc. Share your video with the 12seconds community but also take advantage of sharing through facebook, twitter, etc. Definitely one to try.

TwitCam

Sample: Guessing wines using video and twitter. Why not?

A new toy for me. No pre-recording or editing. You stream live (from you computer only at the moment I believe) and users can interact with you in a chat window and through twitter. As soon as you are online, it lets people know through twitter so you can have your own TV moment. If you have good relationships with followers on twitter, it is worth checking out.

qik

Sample: [still awaiting iPhone app]

A service that allows you to stream video from your mobile device (except iPhone for now, but that is about to change) straight to the internet, and then share it though social media sites. A great way for those who want to let their friends and followers into their daily lives away from the office and desks – such as vineyards or tasting rooms (but make sure you have wifi access).

EWBC

Finally, for now, something which will become more and more important as the volume of content grows, a place to actually FIND relevant content. The EWBC has partnered with 23video to create a place to view lots of video content about the wine bloggers conferences in both USA and Europe. Check these out then consider where, other than your own site, you might want to have your video “archived”. Think of it as a library or gallery of your work, where future consumers will find it.

I could have listed a lot more, but these are things I am playing with. What are your favourites?

Related articles by Zemanta

• What’s the next Twitter of the social web? (socialmediatoday.com)
• 12seconds Gets a New iPhone App: Sending Video to Twitter Made Easy (readwriteweb.com)
• nicefishfilms: TweetDeck gets new features, fixes [feedly] (via Google Reader) (news.cnet.com)
• Five Video Apps That Play Nicely With Twitter (readwriteweb.com)
• How To Get Started With Viddler – Part I (bloggingot.com)

My friend Christian Payne (aka @Documentally) has introduced me to lots of amazing technologies, especially opening my eyes to video, and this morning he pointed me to an incredible use of video technology to “immerse” the viewer in the action – yellowBird :: with the longest URL I have ever seen:

http://www.yellowbirdsdonthavewingsbuttheyflytomakeyouexperiencea3dreality.com

This technology (compared to the Google StreetView Car approach) uses multiple cameras to capture the action in all directions at the same time, merges them and then you can then change your viewpoint as you watch. Watch the video below and have a play – then imagine this as a tool for capturing the reality of harvest and the atmosphere of the winery. How much more would consumers understand about wine?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Social Media and URLs (webmetricsguru.com)
• YouTube now testing 3D stereoscopic video uploads (downloadsquad.com)

Gastronomes no more, it seems wine and beer bloggers have something to cheer and cry over at the same time.

Starting this month (July 2009), Wikio, the news site, has decided to split its previous ranking of top “Gastronomy” blogs into separate food and wine & beer rankings. It means it will be easier to spot closely related blogs, but I must admit some fondness for the previous practice that helped to bring food & wine (& beer) blogs together where they should be (see a previous post here).

So, without further ado, here is advanced notice of the top 25 Wine & Beer blogs in the UK & Ireland for July, but remember to read on below for some thoughts and Wikio’s answers to some of my questions:

1 Spittoon 2 Brew Wales 3 Pete Brown’s Blog 4 jamie goode’s wine blog 5 The Wine Conversation 6 Stonch’s Beer Blog 7 Tandleman’s Beer Blog 8 Pencil & Spoon 9 Sour Grapes 10 Bubble Brothers 11 Bibendum Wine 12 Bordeaux-Undiscovered 13 Drinking Outside The Box 14 Bordoverview Blog 15 Tyson’s Beer Blog 16 Robert Francis Wine 17 Irish Wine Contemplations 18 Barry’s Wine Notes & Memories 19 Burgundy-Report 20 Taking the beard out of beer! Ranking by Wikio.

First to some initial thoughts & reactions:

• Wine 13: Beer 7 (not a bad balance)
• There are at least 3 “merchants” represented in this list. These businesses have achieved a respectable balance of selling their own products and providing interesting and useful content, making them amongst the top wine and beer blogs. Well done folks!
• Several of these blogs in wine and beer are written not just by enthusiasts, but by journalists and authors with traditional media credentials (Jamie Goode, Simon Woods, Peter Brown, Tandleman and Melissa Cole). The cross over to new media channels will hopefully be good for them, for the quality of content in the blogosphere and certainly for readers everywhere.
• Now that food blogs have been taken out, we are left with just one female voice in this ranking, Melissa Cole at Take the Beard out of Beer! (what’s wrong with beards anyway?). That seems a little unbalanced.

If you’ve any more thoughts on the table, do let me know. Congratulations to those who figure in this launch report.

A Wikio Q&A:

So, what do I make of it in general? I had a few questions going round my head, so I sent them to Wikio, and here are some answers:

Q1: What is the most important factor in assessing a blog’s “Ranking”? Traffic? Links? Subscribers? What sort of things should bloggers focus on to raise their profile?

For our ranking the position of a blog depends on the number and weight of the incoming links from other blogs. We count dynamic links, which means backlinks or links found within articles. So blogrolls and the like are not taken into account. Also the weight of any given link increases according to how recently it was published. The weight of a link also depends on the linking blog’s position in the Wikio ranking.

I must admit I think that link measures might be a little “self-serving”, indicating what other bloggers are reading, not what the readers are actually looking for, but I understand that as a machine-measures it works to some extent (it is important to Google for example).

In terms of raising your blog’s profile, therefore, it is more effective to be noticed by other bloggers, by leaving comments on their blogs, contacting them, working with them, etc. rather than employing traditional marketing techniques to build readership. Ultimately, if your content is good, I expect other bloggers will link to it anyway, but it does make you realise that ranking is still a schoolyard “popularity” contest to some extent.

Q2: How do you measure subscriber data? Is this not biased by including feeds to other networking sites (e.g. friendfeed)?

We do not measure subscriber data or traffic, just incoming links. We chose this as a means of measuring the most well-referenced blogs rather than necessarily the most widely read. Bloggers know the other blogs and discussions in their sphere of interest better than anyone, so a link from a fellow blogger is, we feel, a strong endorsement.

Again, it is a shame that ‘real’ indicators cannot be used for ranking. A blog’s subscribers and their loyalty over time, would be very strong measures of how ‘good’ a website really was at delivering value to its readers rather than how good it was at including content others might link to. However, I do prefer that it is not included until a reliable and accurate way is found to gather the same information for all blogs.

Q3: Does including a weighting for links from other top blogs not entrench a hierarchy and act as a barrier to new blogs?

Well it is not the case that a link from the blog in 4th place is worth more than the one in 5th place. Just that one from a blog in the Top 100 is worth more than one from 101st – 1000th. So the degree to which this affects the rankings is actually quite low, and is more intended to combat spam at the lower end.

The idea behind this more general principle is just that blogs that are higher up are generally more active and are more likely to have a better acquaintance with the subject matter, so they are more likely to link to things that are worthwhile. But as I said in practice this weighting does not make a huge difference and is actually pretty light. And it only takes effect on the first 100, then the next 900, then the next 9000 blogs etc.

What is more important and accorded a more calculated weighting is how recent an incoming link is.

I understand the need to filter out the spammers and aggregators. I still think that valuing a link from a subset of blogs creates an in-crowd that does work, in some way, to keep others out, but if the weighting is low, I suppose the overall effect will be minimal. I’d also like to see how well that system works as I have found sites like technorati to offer questionable statistics these days that vary from one week to the next.

Q4: Who really cares about rankings? Does it add value for bloggers or readers, or just drive even more traffic to those who are already successful? Is this just about vanity for bloggers?

The aim of the rankings is more just to provide an easy way for people to find quality blogs on a given subject. But of course we’re happy if people take pride in their position

Q5: What innovations does Wikio offer, or plan to offer, that would engage bloggers in these rankings – or is this just reporting and should we just get on with our blogging?

In fact, we are aiming to introduce a new feature so I’m glad you ask this! We would like to introduce expert bloggers in each field to help us enrich and maintain the rankings (and hopefully launch more new ones, too). We have just published something about this on our blog: http://blog.wikio.com/uk/2009/07/wikios-experts.html

We’d like anyone who is interested to contact us on info AT wikio DOT co DOT uk

I’m sure I missed lots of questions, but if you have any of your own, let me know and I’ll pass them on.

So, if nothing else, I urge you to not just read but to include links to your favourite blogs in your next posts, particularly to help support those who are starting out and are not yet in the top 100.

Of course, links back to this post would be MOST appreciated too

Wine and Tech will be (I hope) a series of short posts on using some new technology to support the wine conversation

I have recently come across a number of innovations that are not directly related to wine, but which got me thinking about how they might be used to do fun, useful and social stuff with wine. I thought I would share some of these with you and see if they sparked ideas for you like the have done for me.

---

How good is your memory? Mine is awful. I’m pretty good with faces, but names are “gone in 60 seconds” (or less). In fact it is the same with wine. Some people can remember what a wine tasted like in previous vintages and minutely compare them from memory. Not me. So I was very excited to learn about EverNote.

EverNote bills itself as the way to “remember everything”. Essentially what it does it take your photos, documents, audio messages and more and not only store them, but index them so you can search and find them later. That isn’t revolutionary on its own, but you need to know that EverNote actually “reads” all the text in the pictures (yes, even the photos) and so you can search for the word in the picture, not just the name of the photo. How cool is that?

What does this have to do with wine? Well, it has always been difficult to capture all the necessary information from a label when you are tasting, especially if in fact you are in a restaurant or bar and not a formal wine event. It is so easy to taste something wonderful and promise yourself that you’ll remember it when you get home … and invariably you don’t. Now, a quick, subtle photo will suffice AND it will be easy to search for again even if you don’t remember much about it in future.

Again, this is quite useful for wine lovers who want to catalogue the causes of their inebriation, but how is this relevant to the wider consumer and the wine conversation?

What I love about the idea is that it allows the average consumer with a mobile phone & camera (and a data plan that allows upload to the web), to record their wine experiences and share them in a useful, searchable and standardised way WITHOUT having to join wine social networks. There are no tasting notes, unless they want to include them, and there is no need to even understand how to read the wine label. A photo, plus a tag such as “buy again” or “hated this” is enough.

Of course the system is much more powerful than I’ve described it, adding GPS codes, matching images etc, but you can explore that if you are keen.

I’m already playing with this and wondering how it might be useful to wine drinkers, so if you have any thoughts, or you use EverNote too, please let me know.

Related articles by Zemanta

• How I Taste and Review Wines (winecast.net)
• Dynamic Wine Labels on the Google Phone (delaranja.com)
• Wine Trivia du Jour (napavalleywineradio.com)
• Your Most Beautiful Artwork May Be Your Wine Label (corksavvy.com)

This weekend I will be heading off to Genoa (or Genova as our hosts call it) to attend TerroirVino.

TerroirVino is the creation of my friend Filippo Ronco, who has also established one of Italy’s premier wine resources, TigullioVino. I met Filippo when he attended last year’s European Wine Bloggers’ Conference and I was very impressed by his determination to create a whole series of tools for wine lovers and publishers. His business also covers an advertising network for bloggers and the Vinix wine social network.

TerroirVino is a conference and tasting. On Sunday I will be taking part in Vinix Unplugged, an unconference to discuss wine, food and marketing online. I will be on at 15:00 (I think) to present the 2009 EWBC (European Wine Bloggers Conference) and some of this may be streamed live here. Monday promises a wonderful array of top Italian wines as there are 125 exhibitors pouring their wines in the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa. Expect a few tweets and twitpics from me to make you all jealous.

I hope to let you know what exciting things are happening in Italy that might have an impact beyond that country, and hopefully also meet some of the marvellous range of Italian wine bloggers attending the event. Most of all, I look forward to sharing information about the 2009 EWBC with everyone.

If you are coming to the conference or tasting, please say hello – or even Ciao!

A presto amici!

So, this month it was my turn to give (and receive?) some link love to Wikio and Gastronomic Blogging Friends.

Somehow, and I honestly cannot say how, or why, I’ve managed to enter the rankings of the Food & Blogging world in the UK according to Wikio. All these rankings and their algorithms are a bit of a black box and who knows what affects the results, but they are out there and fun to track.

I have been given the chance to give a slightly early view of the latest update of the top rankings of UK wine, beer, food and related blogs, and you can read the top 20 below. The most interesting points of note, well, those that jump out at me (in the time available) are:

• Pete Brown’s beer blog jumps from 54th to 7th. I’ve no idea where this blog might have been in the rankings before but this is a pretty impressive jump and a blog I shall be checking out.
• A return to the top 10 for A Slice of Cherry Pie (an impressive jump from 13 to 5) – a place I’m sure Julia has occupied before
• Bordeaux-Undiscovered adds to the list of top wine blogs and builds on last month’s impressive rise with another, entering the top 20

As usual, I’m a little disappointed there are not more wine blogs featuring here (to add to Spittoon, Wine Conversation, Jamie Goode’s Wine Anorak, Sour Grapes and now Bordeaux Undiscovered) but it is good to see more beer blogs joining the list. However, it is interesting to see that most of the top 20 are reasonably unchanged, so I guess we are either doing something right (or as I suspect, the system rewards those who are already succesful).

If anyone else spots any trends, or has any thoughts on the development or nature of the list, please do drop me a note.

1 The Guardian – Word of Mouth 2 Hollow Legs 3 eat like a girl 4 Food Stories 5 A Slice of Cherry Pie 6 Spittoon 7 Pete Brown’s Blog 8 The Wine Conversation 9 Cheese and Biscuits 10 World Foodie Guide 11 Tandleman’s Beer Blog 12 Stonch’s Beer Blog 13 spittoonextra 14 DOS HERMANOS 15 Domestic Goddess in Training 16 jamie goode’s wine blog 17 Ice Cream Ireland 18 Sour Grapes 19 Joanna’s Food 20 Bordeaux-Undiscovered Ranking by Wikio.

I have a dilemma. As with many other twitterers and bloggers out there who write about the subject matter they also work with, I sometimes have some potential conflicts of interest. To be more precise, I face some situations that some might pick up on as conflicts in a traditional journalistic sense.

I agree that someone who promotes themselves as a journalist and wants to be seen as an objective reporter of facts and news must be very careful about what products or brands they become associated with. However, I don’t think all bloggers really are journalists. We aim to share news and facts, as we see them, but mainly we try to entertaining you, and have fun as we do it. If you like it, you can follow us, and if you don’t, you can easily stop. We bloggers soon get the message.

So, to the dilemma.

I often come across information about, or even help to organise, wine events, tastings, special offers and more. Some of these, of course, relate to the wines I represent in the UK (which I have chosen not to mention on this blog, but write about elsewhere) or at least to the retailers and restaurants that I meet with regularly.

Should I let you know about these offers through this site, or should I be very selective and avoid the potential of being seen to abuse any trust you have in me as a commentator on wine?

I’m not talking about spamming my readers with hundreds of offers and deals, but if I hear of something I consider interesting, or get the opportunity to suggest something I think readers might enjoy, should I mention it here and do this as openly as possible even if it involves my wines, or business partners’? The alternative is, as I have often done, to participate myself and report on it from the event, but it does mean others can’t get involved.

In fact, turning it around, should I actually be encouraging MORE people to create wine offers for you through Social Media? Of course, I’m not just talking about discounts, but about events that encourage the exploration of wine and support wine culture.

I’m hoping that as many of my readers are also bloggers, or wine trade professionals, you’ll understand the situation and have some advice to offer.

As more and more of the restaurants, wine retailers and wine producers that I talk to want to know more about the possibilities of Social Media, there will be more and more opportunities for this to arise, and I’d like to get a sense of whether I’m getting the balance right, or you feel I may be promoting other businesses too much.

If you want to keep it even more brief you could respond “Yes” or “No”:

• Yes – let me know of interesting wine related offers (but don’t spam me, just the best bits)

• No – concentrate on wine writing (and do more of it) and let other sites promote the offers

… but a bit more explanation might help

Yours, in some trepidation for what I might be starting, your friendly neighbourhood @thirstforwine

On Friday March 6th, I shall be putting myself through a challenge – and thanks to the wonders of social media, I am fully expecting this to be recorded, broadcast live and commented upon for some time to come.

If you still need an additional reason to watch, I have had to admit that I have not ever really eaten oysters… Watch me live – you never know what might happen.

Galvin at Windows has decided to put on a “showcase event”, the kind that happens all the time in restaurants for those lucky enough to be considered “influential” enough to be invited – and by this I usually mean the traditional restaurant review Press and also key clients. However, for one of the first times in my experience, this will be done for the benefit of bloggers and other Social Media users AND shared with everyone via video streams and live blogging/tweeting.

Once again, I take my hat off to Fred at Galvin (@galvinatwindows) for his confidence in this medium.

I will be amongst a select group of wine & food bloggers, along with representatives from TrustedPlaces, to meet the suppliers of Galvin at Windows Oysters (Wright Brothers) and their Champagnes (Bibendum). The idea is to have a fun event, matching and rating different oysters, champagnes and the best combination of these, and do so in a way that lets others learn more about the subjects as well as about the restaurant.

Inspired PR! Even if I hadn’t been invited to take part I probably would have watched.

For those interested in the experience that, to be honest, most of us cannot afford, this type of event is a great way to learn about both both oysters and champagne, and matching them, through a medium that is so much more interactive and relevant than television. Hopefully we will ALL learn a lot from this event.

This will all take place between 16:00 and 18:00 (London time) via Twitter (follow #galvinw), via live blogging (although I’m not sure on what blogs yet) and also on the World TV channel Ustream.tv – to watch, click here.

If you still need an additional reason to watch, I have had to admit that I have not ever really eaten oysters. I believe I may have tried them as a child, but not since. I think that making this event my first proper experience is both wonderful (might as well start with the best), and terrifying. Watch me live – you never know what might happen.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Trusted Places Gets a Revamp. Clean is the Word. (thenextweb.com)
• Twitter – Worlds Fastest News Source (viralblog.com)

I’m off to Twestival tomorrow. There will be 700 of us in London, and thousands around the world, doing the same thing on the same day; networking, having fun, drinking wine, and raising money for Charity:Water

This post is not about that though. If you want to read about the great work being done by the Twestival organisers and the charity, click on the links above, and if you want to know why I helped to have the wine sponsored in London, read my post here.

This is about doing something a little different with my blog – getting out from behind the screen and meeting lots of interesting people who currently have no interest in reading my blogs, but who just might. Networking events like this, and those promoted on sites like Meetup.com are a great strategy for getting new ideas, new readers and new partnerships.

This is part of my approach:

Becoming known as a blogger takes effort, and not all of it needs to be online. Sometimes bloggers get so caught up in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Google Ranks, etc. that they forget that one of the most important things about writing a blog, and using twitter, is the possibility it offers to connect with REAL people.

Having a blog gives me a reason to network with other bloggers, and have something in common with them from the start. We can then explore whether there are any other ways we can cooperate – and maybe get them to read, interact and contribute to my blog, and vice versa.

Tomorrow night I’ll be doing just that, and I’m using the combined efforts of a shirt designer (Blaqua), a printer with great social equity (moo) and a little ingenuity.

I’ve had my friend add a small, unobtrusive pocket to this shirt so I can carry around my Mini Moo cards and always have them on hand to share with interesting contacts.

A bit of fun, and a bit of social media marketing in the offline world

[UPDATE 13/2/09: the event last night went extremely well, and the shirt went down a storm. I met SO many wonderful people and I'm glad to report at least some recognised me just form the shirt. Job done! Also, Moo.com liked the idea so much they'll be writing about it in their newsletter. If you've come from there, leave me a comment.

I'll be writing a follow up post with details of where & how you might get one of these limited edition shirts very soon, so subscribe to my feed and stay in touch]

Related articles by Zemanta

• Twestival (osocio.org)
• Donating To Twestival from Twitter (blogs.msdn.com)
• London Social Media Camp (open.ac.uk)

I’m still waiting to see the reaction from traditional wine press sources (if any), but the “Beyond the Trade” Twitter Taste Live event at the Bibendum tasting was a great success.

We had even more participants both at the tasting and at homes & offices around the UK than I expected and the feedback has been incredible.

You can even see one of the many videos taken on the day (thanks to @documentally), just before we kicked off the tasting:

A quick glance at the results shows that there were at least 300 posts on Twitter in the 45 minutes or so we discussed the three wines, and in that time this event become the Number 1 discussed topic on Twitter GLOBALLY (beating Obama himself the day after his inauguration, albeit for a few minutes only).

However, the best part of the event was the numerous comments from non wine experts, but wine consumers, about how they had found so much pleasure in tasting wines, sharing the experience and learning some new stuff, such as tasting varieties or wines from countries like Austria for the very first time.

What better example does anyone in the wine business need, or in any business for that matter, that there are wonderful opportunities out there to engage and educate consumers in ways that are relevant and fun?

I’ll post a round up of comments and feedback soon, but in the meantime, START EXPLORING SOCIAL MEDIA TODAY!

Related articles by Zemanta

• What could wine do differently?
• Announcing Twitter Taste Live 5: Cameron Hughes
• Live Blogging Twitter Taste Live 5