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April 30, 2008

Project Vino Twitter Wine Tasting

Duncan Riley

22 comments »

pv.jpgWine Tasting is more of a traditional pursuit, like minded people gathering together to taste fine wine. Twitter wine tasting has been tried before, a wine tasting party that gathered web notables in person to try wines tried the concept back in March. But until now no Twitter wine tasting event has focused on providing wine over a broad geographic region with a focus back on providing feedback via Twitter.

Project Vino, an Australian wine site focused on community recommendations, tried the Twitter wine tasting model today. The site sent three bottles of Kirrihill (South Australia) wine to 12 prominent Australian Twitter users, with the only obligation being to tweet their thoughts to Twitter at the designated times.

Project Vino CEO Hugo Sharp had this to say on the event:

This event is one of the earliest instances of using Twitter to transfer an event as social and active as a wine tasting, into online realms. The end result? A resounding success. When you have a social drink which is best enjoyed sharing experiences with friends, it works perfectly with online communication tools.

As one of the twelve sent the wine it was both a fun, and an informative experience. It helps that the Kirrihill Wine was good, but the networking and good word of mouth will make the 3 cartons an easy spend. Reviews can be found via @projectvino. An experiement that was suppose to last 45 minutes kicked on well and truly past the testing time, a positive sign that the wine was well received.

Pics below are from a live stream of the event.

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  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 at 6:20 am and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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  1. TechCrunch Japanese アーカイブ » Twitterで12人のワイン・テイスティングを繋ぐProject Vinoの実験企画

    April 30th, 2008 at 9:38 am

  2. Project Vino: Wine E-Tasting | MS&L Digital

    May 7th, 2008 at 8:32 am

Comments

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  1. Conor O'Neill

    April 30th, 2008 at 6:59 am

    I like it! We’ve had people sending “live” wine reviews via Twitter and SMS to LouderVoice for quite a while now. The 140 character limit seems to suit wine really well.

  2. Sundar

    April 30th, 2008 at 7:11 am

    Looks like it’s as much a Yahoo! Live event as a Twitter one. But, I find no mention of it here. Twitter’s the new darling?

  3. Daniel Thomaser

    April 30th, 2008 at 7:13 am

    “Twitter’s the new darling?”
    is that a real question? ;o)

  4. Jefff

    April 30th, 2008 at 7:14 am

  5. dan

    April 30th, 2008 at 8:13 am

    I am over twitter

  6. Harry Wang

    April 30th, 2008 at 8:20 am

    Oh, for fuck sakes.

    I’m going to start a site for people to post carpet/wallpager/paint swatch color schemes for people to vote on and discuss. Then we can Twitter the results and put videos on YouTube and start blogs on the preferred schems and an ad network to lure in the niche advertisers…

    Harry “when will the lunacy stop” Wang

  7. Harry Wang

    April 30th, 2008 at 8:21 am

    I don’t know what is more stupid…people thinking using existing sites to do something is groundbreaking or people choosing to write about it like it is newsworthy.

    Harry “in a bad mood today” Wang

  8. matt

    April 30th, 2008 at 8:38 am

    spigrrl looks hot.

  9. Matt

    April 30th, 2008 at 8:50 am

    Wine tasting? This is the stupidest thing I’ve seen on TC in my whole life… (well, in TC’s whole life)…

    A passel of Aussies twittering about wine and watching each other drink it over webcam is tech news??? What a fucking joke. This should have gone on duncanriley dot com. Just because you used Twitter and YahooLive does not make your little upside down circle jerk any more interesting.

    Next I suppose we will get a 500 word post about golf? Perhaps caviar or cheese? I would keep going but my brain already hurts from seeing this post and I’m struggling to think of what elitist, non-web nonsense we could possibly be marauded by next.

    Matt “I’m with harry” S.

  10. Paul Montgomery

    April 30th, 2008 at 8:53 am

    Elitist? I’ll have you know that I’m lower-class as they come.

  11. Perry Mizota

    April 30th, 2008 at 9:22 am

    Yesterday, I wrote a blog post where I argued that in order for Twitter to go mainstream, it needs to have a more clearly defined purpose. This is a step in the direction of making Twitter more purposeful.

  12. marko bon

    April 30th, 2008 at 10:50 am

    Sneaking a peak at the thread in the Live Chat window, you can’t help notice that the conversation is about two things not related to wine: the technology and the conversation itself. It’s a good example of not-ready-for-prime-time, because waxing philosophical about the wine’s oak-y bouquet over Twitter feels even dorkier than simply nerding out about the platform.

  13. David Berkowitz

    April 30th, 2008 at 1:33 pm

    I’m a big fan of this one. The idea here’s not to use Twitter for Twitter’s sake, but to engage with influencers there so that they’ll spread it beyond the confines of the tweeting. The winery clearly did well amplifying its presence, and while Twitter didn’t have to be part of it - any chat room would work, as would video conferencing sites like ooVoo - it was a good use of the platform.

  14. David Berkowitz

    April 30th, 2008 at 1:34 pm

    Pardon - I meant the wine site, not the winery.

  15. Hugo Sharp

    April 30th, 2008 at 3:04 pm

    People are correct in that Twitter was a necessity, it could have been any number of communication tools. What was interesting about the event was that as soon as the Yahoo Live video was established, its speed and intimacy made it the new nexus for the event. This is not to say that twitter didn’t add value. Twitter;
    1. Provided a time shifted platform for late comers to catch up.
    2. More importantly, provided an immediate call to arms mechanism to alert others of the conversation going on at the Yahoo Live site.
    Lessons were learned and the mix will be tweeked for event number 2.

    The naysayers can have there “it’s nothing special” stance but this event represents what all this technology is about. It’s the fruit of all the efforts gone before. New communication tools go mainstream when the tech is no longer used to just talk about tech but life experiences.

    Drink on.

  16. Phillip Molly Malone

    April 30th, 2008 at 5:17 pm

    I think that you have deluted the idea by putting up screen captures from the yahoo live part and not enough about the actual Wine tasting and the twitter. Why no screen grabs of the Wine tweets, that would seem to be a better ad for the “Product” (???).

    Also wouldn’t it of been more interesting if they sent the bottles to Wine experts to tweet about instead of technologists? Plus, it aint that great an ad for responsible drinking with guys shoving whole bottles of wine in there gobs! Looks like a wino party! Perhaps you could get Corey in next time to host it!

    Molly
    PS. Did Duncan write this or John Laws? CFC?

  17. Phillip Molly Malone

    April 30th, 2008 at 5:23 pm

    For those that missed it, here are some of the insightful comments from one of the reviewers:
    @projecvino you’fre off? omg, I’m so fucjking drunk!
    @projectvino you fucking rock man. rokcin’ night.
    @projectvino so fucking awesome a night I’m too drunk to twitter
    ….
    @projectvino eating? why ruin a good drink with eating?

    Molly

  18. dekrazee1

    April 30th, 2008 at 7:51 pm

    It was a great idea and great fun. Excellent wine too.

    A summary of the evening’s tweets can be found here: http://summize.com/search?from.....&tude=

  19. martin english

    April 30th, 2008 at 9:59 pm

    #6, Harry, you’d get sued by arrington for stealing his business.

    yes, its more than twitter, but twitter was where the conversation / prject started.

  20. Kahunagirl

    May 2nd, 2008 at 3:24 am

    For all the critics out there I thought the night was great fun. Its creative marketing that is pioneering what will come. Now its all about experimenting with twitter and other technology to bring your brand and product alive on the web. I’m thinking about how I can use this concept for my brand and products. Great idea @projectvino!

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