Wine Lovers Now Have A Web 2.0 Site
Michael Arrington
83 comments »
WineLog, a new site for wine lovers, just launched. It’s a site that has user generated information on wines, including tags, ratings and comments.
The content is not deep yet, and users are encouraged to add more wines to the database (a new wine entry is moderated before appearing on the site). But there is enough content there to show that this will be a site that wine lovers will be passionate about. I am, also, hopeful that it will tap into a new market of people who may not yet be familiar with “web 2.0 sites”, and introduce them to tagging, RSS, comments, etc.
If you find a wine you like, you can add it to your own wine log. These pages have a permanent public URL for sharing (privacy is promised soon, along with RSS, blog widgets and other features). You can also send information on any wine entry directly to your cell phone via a text message.
The service is still very rough and I have a number of nits/suggestions. Wines are browseable by type (red, white, etc.), variety and region. I’d like to be able to browse by winery as well. Clicking on tags from there will show other wines I might like, too. Another nit: when you leave a comment on a wine, it does not appear in your wine log. you have to leave a separate comment there. There are also a few navigation bugs.
But overall, I like the site and the service. At the very least, its significantly more useful than the personalization options offered by Winespectator for a fee.
Don’t forget Cork’d which launched last week.
BenJ - I hadn’t seen Cork’d. I am checking it out now. Thanks for the pointer.
Interesting point about bringing the masses into web2.0. Taking this probably too techie, they could partner with supply chain to insert sema codes on the bottles themselves. The sema codes could point right to Winelogs. For non web2.0 offline types, this might be what brings them to the web2.0 world.
This could also be an interesting partnership opportunity for any of the comparison shopping engines that have crawl ability (ie insert prices from around net next to bottles). Dulance, PriceRunner, Shopzilla, PriceFish, etc might gladly pay a premium to service this rich demographic and gain competitive advantage, branding as a leading API for private labeling solutions.
I’ve been using cork’d…
I just heard about cork’d a few days ago too…the design is great! I love it.
I only wish there was more contextual information about each wine.
As a wine producer what I want to see is an RSS feed that I can subscribe to for my wines. Then if I get a poor review I can run over and find out if it is corked and offer a refund. If it is good, I can thank the person reviewing and maybe offer a tour of the winery or some such.
Sadly neither corkd (for sure) and winelog (I think) provide this capability.
I agree with you that WineList should allow browsing by wine maker, but WineList should also allow browsing by price range! There are a lot of great wines that are also a great value; you don’t have to spend $45 to get a really nice wine.
oops, I meant WineLog, not list!
the proliferation of wine e-commerce sites in 1999 was the (generally ignored) signal of the dot-com overfunding and subsequent bust in 2000. Hmm…
I like the look of cork’d…. However, both sites could really do with guides and info on wines in general….. Just a thought…
Oh but the design! It’s so very 1999. Images for text all over the shop, tables for layout and spacer gifs. I can only imagine what les behind.
Simply unacceptable in 2006
john
I agree with John’s comment above about the design of WineLog, the code behind it is really poor, in this day and age it’s unacceptable to not be conforming to web standards, and visually it’s not very exciting. Do they somehow think that Wine users as a demographic are going to be using old pcs and Windows 98?!!
The site corkd.com is definitely a better option! Looks much better!
Cork’d is far superior. Tag this review as “erroneous post”
I definitely think Cork’d is what will bring wine to the Web2.0 masses. WineLog is over a week too late, and doesn’t have any big names behind it (Dan Benjamin of HiveLogic + Dan Cederholm of SimpleBits = Tundro) that the web community can stand behind.
Add to that the fact that WineLog doesn’t have a drop of meta content in the source code, or a meaningful page title. How are people going to even find this site short of posts like these?
cork’d is much better
They really should add photos. If they did that and also made an email feed for the photos you could add pictures of wine labels that you take in restaurants with a cell phone camera.
The single best use for the cell phone camera I have yet found is taking pictures of wine bottle labels.
This is a service that screams out for a mobile friendly portal.
You want to be able to look up wine two places. First, in your seat in a restaurant. Second, in the aisle of your wine retailer.
If you implement these ideas, and feel like compensating me, you can send me a bottle of 1997 Silver Oak
I discovered cork’d last week, and I’ve not been able to stop drinking since.
I’m the developer behind WineLog. I’ll be doing the day job thing for a bit, and Kim is on her way to the beach. So we won’t be able to respond to everyone as quickly as we’d like to. I just wanted to let everyone know that we are receiving your feedback and really appreciate it.
A few points while I have the time:
- Corkd.com is a great site. Everyone should check it out. Currently, both WineLog and Corkd have different subsets of the same feature list. I encourage you to figure out which site is doing it for you right now.
- Maybe validated code is doing it for you. Corkd has us here. I mean they have the guy who wrote *the* book on standard-based design. And they have the guy who runs *the* standards-based design website. I really look up to Dan and Dan and applaud their work. (FWIW, we’re aware of how to make a “proper” website these days. We’ve decided to focus on getting things functional with the intention of doing a makeover on the site once it gets too unwieldy.)
- Thanks for the feedback. We love the feedback; it helps us direct development. Most of the suggestions so far (price information, RSS feeds, browsing by wineries, flickr integration) are on our huge list of to-dos. Even better page titles, and meta data in the header are on there too. The more you talk about them, the higher they get on our list. Thanks again for the input.
- While we are planning to add RSS feeds, I’ve been mostly thinking of how they would be used by consumers. It’s good to know that producers would also appreciate this feature. Thanks, Josh.
- ventureblogalist, partnerships with shopping and comparison engines is an interesting idea. We may have to look into this further.
p.s. If anyone can help me replace my income, contact me ASAP. I’m feverishly trying to find a way to go full time on this effort.
I agree that cork’d is a great site, I have been using it for a couple of weeks now and love the design. It is built around user content so everyone go check it out and put some wines up there and rate the ones you have tried.
I also think Cork’d is much better visually, when I clicked the link in my RSS reader I though the article was about them. Its intresting both sites launched so close to each other.
And yet another just released: http://www.redteeth.com
Suddenly in the last week, 3 wine sites have hit the list, if this anything like the last round (bubble) I’m hitting the bank today and stocking up on beans and rice. (and wine I suppose) whine?
Another vote for cork’d… I like the social aspects of it, especially. I think the other bonus is as more and more people input their wines, it will gain value, in the way cddb and imdb work…
Another vote for Cork’d - the “two Dans” did a great job.
Yeah Cork’d is fantastic, Michael, I’m really surprised that you haven’t seen it considering two all-stars of the design and development industries worked on it, Dan Cederholm (designed fastcompany.com, inc.com) and Dan Benjamin (wrote full backend for the new A List Apart, The Morning News, etc.)
Yeah sorry, cork’d kicks this in the ass.
I like cork’d too, I have a quick spotlight of it on BuzzShout.
Tables!!!!! *retch!!*… blah!!
I’ll stick with Cork’d thanks…
i’m cork’d as well.
But I agree with a post above, more contextual information about each wine and pictures of the wine bottle (makes it easier to locate at the store).
I admit that cork’d has a better interface, but I like WineLog’s current feature set better. If they just integrate Mike’s suggestions about not having to double comment, I think they’re doing really well. The larger database of wines helps too.
So much for WineLog letting the people whoe signed up at their site know it was launching…
This is old news :-). eHub listed this (and Cork’d) last week. Just FYI.
Winediary.com has been up for some time
Yep, saw Cork’d last week too. Both are very cool sites.
I’m a Cork’d too. It was made by two awesome web designers / developers (no affiliation). I guess someone should have told Michael about its openning. I didn’t b/c I thought he knew all … in regards to startups.
I checked out WineLog beta, but didn’t like the look and feel as much as Cork’d. It wasn’t as much fun to use. That’s not to say the site is perfect. They have a long way to go feature-wise before they take off, IMHO. Either way, it’s nice to see some competition. Someone needs to make a spirits site like these two.
Cheers!
WOOOOP! WOOOOP!
Bubble alert… bubble alert
WOOOOP! WOOOOP!
What’s next, TV ads with puppets?
Looks like a site worth checking out. More RSS options would be a plus, as would be searching by price level. Also, they ought to think about a side-bar box which spiders the web for external information about any specific wine they list.
Sure, cork’d is a better site… but why the hell would you name a wine site “corked” — that’s probably the worst thing you could name it….
Yes, chris, “corked” is the worst name for a wine site.
To all of the Cork’d lovers, there is room for two wine sites. Competition is a good thing.
From a marketing standpoint, Cork’d is a more memorable name than WineLog. The name has personality and this comes through in the design, writing and overall presentation.
O.K. So now I checked out all three sites
Corkd
winediary
winelog
All have there good points and bad, let the market figure it out.
corkd is better though
Yes, don, it is…. the problem is that a bunch of web 2.0 kids are using the site, not wine enthusiasts…. so again, “corked” is the worst name for a wine site.
Mike don t forget http://www.tastydrop.com/ which has also e-commerce features
Your comment, “corked’ is the worst name for a wine site” confuses me. What’s the rationale behind this statement?
I assume because the wine bottle has a cork in it, and hence is “corked”, as in not being poured into a glass for drinking? Help me out here.
If I’m on target, well, then I still don’t agree.
Using your apparent rationale, as far as “bad” names go, I would say that Google, Yahoo!, Technorati, Skype, Zimbra and Six Apart are all poor picks. Of this group, most, if not all, are doing reasonably well for themselves…
The term “corked” is used by wine people to suggest the wine is spoiled:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cork_taint
“Corked wine containing TCA has a characteristic odor, variously described as resembling a moldy newspaper, wet dog, or damp basement”
LOL — they should have just named the site, “Smelly, Wet Dog”.
Screw (or, un-screw) WineLog.
Corkd.com is crisp, clean, and has a hints of berries and oak as well.
“I am, also, hopeful that it will tap into a new market of people who may not yet be familiar with “web 2.0 sites”, and introduce them to tagging, RSS, comments, etc.”
…..has anyone considered that most people don’t care if its web 1, 2,3,4 dot o
…provide a useful service and they will use it - Craigslist is ultimate proof
Definitely not the first ‘web 2.0′ (I hate saying that) site for wine. As someone already mentioned, corkd (corkd.com) launched recently and seems much better than winelog.
Nice menu, first oyster, then wine … what’s for dessert?
Have you seen the the new woot site?
http://wine.woot.com
Are you kidding me? Does anyone else feel like the tech industry is doing the Hollywood thing where competing studios hear about an upcoming flick and try to beat the others to the market in making the same damn thing? Antz and A Bug’s Life, Without Limits and Prefontaine, etc. It’s hard to believe that they’re all just serendipity.
Before cork’d there was tastydrop.com
60+ members, rss, wine images, notes, pricing.
Blahhh blahhh blahhhh
before tastydrop there was winelogs.com
You guys should try http://www.cellartracker.com. It doesn’t have the rounded search box or fancy web 2.0 UI but it is the largest cellar management site on the web. Oh yeah and it has lots and lots of tasting notes, or user-generated content. This is the best wine site on the web.
Thanks Jamie. Yes, CellarTracker is probably pretty low-tech, low-design, but it is highly functional, has 15,000 registered users, 2.6 million bottles in inventory, just shy of 120,000 tasting notes (a.k.a. consumer wine reviews), integration with Wine-Searcher.com, a huge database of auction results etc.
This is something I originally built just for myself back in 2003, but I have turned it into my day job over the past 18 months. I have been very focused (too focused?) on function over form over the past couple of years, but I am always looking for feedback.
Check out My Wine Critic (http://www.mywinecritic.com/) instead.
Anybody else…
The original is bottlecount.com and there is also winedemocracy.com
The problem is that almost none of these have ever achieved critical mass and more than a few thousand reviews.
I think Alder’s article on Why Community Tasting Note Sites Will Fail is a very good essay on all these websites are looking at the wine world with a “wrong 2.0″ perspective. Worth the read.
If you like Cork’d for wine but have a taste for beer, check out Chug’d!
Chuggers can join in on the fun of finding and listing new beers and commenting on them. Rate and tag beers that they have already chug’d. Locate beer buddies, events, and places involving beer in their areas. Post and view beer goggle party photos via our social beer drinkers network! Buddies can subscribe to RSS feeds of their buddies activity.
Oh, I almost forgot! Listen for the Chicken Dance Chug-a-Lug Song when you visit the site (http://www.chugd.com). Every time you hear the chicken dance song grab your mug and chug-a-lug!
Check out the founder’s interview on the Web 2.0 Show ->
http://web20show.com/articles/.....s-matthieu
If you’ve gotten this far in the comments (on such an old story), I applaud you. Let me chime in by saying that WineLog.net is the best of the “tasting notes” sites. I may be biased though: I’m co-founder of WineLog.
We’ve had about 9 months of “competition” from when this article was written and most of the sites mentioned above are still around. There is no clear “winner” yet (except CellarTracker, which was already successful and just needs to stand ground).
Some new sites have come out:
- http://bottletalk.com (for UK folks)
- http://vinorati.com (also in French)
Since this article was posted, WineLog has undergone a serious aesthetic and structural make-over. If you haven’t checked out the site in a while, you should go there now.
We’ve also just released some great mobile features via http://winelog.mobi. Others have had mobile access, but I think we’re doing it pretty goot.
Next up is revamping our recommendation features, which have been our “distinguishing feature”, and need to get better if we’re still going to treat it that way.
Thanks, guys.