June 23 2008
The Wine Blogging Review Coalition (WBRC) is dead simple, and it need not be anything more than that, at least now.
After receiving insightful comments on the post I wrote yesterday about the idea of creating a cooperative form of wine reviewing, I think it might aid the conversation if I expand a bit.
Actually, I think what I want to do is contract a bit, because it is more helpful to say what the Wine Blogging Review Coalition IS NOT (at least as I have imagined it), more so than what it is.
1) The WBRC is not about certification by its participants; though, I think certification is important for reasons that I will explain.
2) The WBRC is not something that is intended to address individual credibility and integrity. This is not a zero sum game where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The WBRC is a vehicle that rides shotgun with our individual endeavors, with an eye on the future.
3) The WBRC is not for Steve Heimoff who has a gig with Wine Enthusiast thankyouverymuch. And, I should note that I think Heimoff and Matt Kramer are two of the more erudite wine writers in the US write now. So, no offense, Steve.
4) The WBRC is not trying to drive any type of standard or consolidation for wine bloggers—I am completely happy with beautiful chaos.
5) The WBRC is not something I’m committed to do unless I have a coalition of the willing (mercy on my soul for the colloquial political reference)
Here is what the WBRC is and the problem(s) it solves, but first, just a bit of context:
Wine Blogging is like a Boy Scout troop where every 12-year-old kid in the troop wants to be an Eagle Scout. We are all Chief with no Indians. This would be fine if we were talking about knitting at the sewing circle, but wine is one of the hottest consumer categories in the country right now. We are stronger together, then individually.
Somehow, we have to get over our individual Id and coalesce around the pack leader. I am not saying I am the Pack Leader; there are others more suited who are working on their Eagle Scout badges, if that makes sense. Absent leadership, somebody has to step up, though.
That said, many have noted that wine blogging does incent purchase activity. We know that all three tiers of the wine industry read blogs, we know that wineries are increasingly viewing bloggers as influential and that wine blogs are predominantly read by a very small collective audience that wield influence greater than their size. We know that wine sales are happening at a rapid rate online; we know that people buy wine at retail by the point. All of these things are acknowledged truths.
So, what is wrong with lining up your centerfielder to shade towards left field if you know you have a right-handed pull hitter at the plate?
What wine blogs are not (and lets be real here), are a credible vehicle in mainstream wine culture. It is a simple fact.
God bless Alder at Vinography or Gary Vaynerchuk, but their micro-influence does not even begin to compete with Parker or the Wine Spectator, at least not yet. Any one of my wine-loving friends that buy futures and Silver Oak and have cellars do not know and do not give a rip about wine bloggers. There are many of these people—many more than the people that “get” wine blogging.
Now, I am not talking about trying to boil the ocean here, what I am suggesting is a simple start on a path to greater legitimacy. In addition, again, this is not about my palate versus your palate who has chops and who does not, this is bigger than next month especially if you buy into the future and the democratization of content.
In my humble opinion, a wine blog review cooperative with some baseline of standards is a healthy start to creating a vehicle that can act as a legitimate fourth estate in wine reviews.
The Wine Blogging Review Coalition is:
1) Very similar to Wine Blogging Wednesday with the following differences:
* Wines are provided as samples
* Review participants are limited
* The site is sponsored
* There is an under-current of capitalism because the site is sponsored and the blog reviewers receive stipends
2)The WBRC is a way to start to build some collaboration with a small set of bloggers who review wines using a standardized language—be that stars, be that points, be that word count, whatever …
3) The WBRC is a way to aggregate content and reviews for wineries and associations that do not get frequent reviews otherwise …
4) The WBRC is a way to aggregate content and reviews for retailers who would like to merchandise and the wineries that would like for them to merchandise.
5) The WBRC is a way to save foolish advertising spends by international organizations and associations that are spending money in ways that can yield better results.
6) The WBRC is an entry-point to help tame blogging and social media for the uninitiated
7) The WBRC reviewers have a baseline of credibility with a minimum certification from a governing body; a certification that most wine bloggers could pass with little challenge. And, I would add, based on a separate conversation string, that WBRC reviews follow some form of journalistic guidelines for integrity and ethics.
8) The WBRC is a way for bloggers to earn a stipend for their work, while working with complete independent editorial voice
9) The WBRC is owned by no own, it is a cooperative “owned” by the participants.
So, that is the gist, with full transparency, over two posts and about two thousand words. Please add additional comment, as I have provided more context. My next step, depending on what the comments bring is to do a visual schematic and invite more participation.
Thanks for reading Good Grape!
Posted in, Around the Wine Blogosphere. Permalink | Comments (10) |
Jeff, I just read through your previous post, and those comments, and now this. I think you are on to something. In essence the supply is there (plenty of great, fresh content on the Web, blogs and otherwise); the demand is there (with wine hot, the need for guidance is evergreen and growing); and the potential support ($$$) is there, based on the breadth of wine advertising online and in print. Wouldn’t it make more sense to try to collect and edit the current content before trying to create something new? And to make it more grounded AND accessible, give it a time frame, such as biweekly. My only other thought at this point is that the more independent you are (in terms of differentiating yourself from traditional wine media) the more attractive it will be in the cyber context.
I am watching John Adams, the HBO mini-series. If you haven’t yet watched it, Jeff, you should. You are going to end up writing the Declaration of Independence if you aren’t careful!
Seriously, I’m happy to be an Indian in Chief Lefevere’s tribe, especially when said chief is so good about listening to feedback—and seems genuinely to want it!
I think a bunch of people reviewing the same wine would make people happy. It’s one of the reasons they search on the web for reviews. They WANT different perspectives, and somehow work out an average of all those perspectives and decide whether they’re going to buy it or not.
So if you can corral a bunch of highly-opinionated (nb: this is a good thing in a critic. Who wants a wishy-washy critic? that’s why we wine bloggers are SO hard to deal with in a group), overworked, and underpaid wine bloggers to drink wine and actually meet a publication deadline for reviews I say go for it.
I think in time such a site would become a standard point of reference. I also think that dhonig is right: the rich are going to get richer if you do it. The problem with a select group of wine bloggers is that it’s select—so people will be left out. And that is going to lead to a lot of unhappy campers in the wine blogosphere. Remember John Adams.
The entire idea is great. I have been mulling the concept of combining WBW with our site for quite some time.
Our site could act as the common review / transaction platform (we can remit % splits to contributing bloggers)and aggregator of each bloggers’ reviews. Overtime, each blogger can build his or her review portfolio.
I think it’s important to have one site rather than multiple sponsored sites because one recurring site provides consumers with one destination to constantly return to in order to discover which wines are being reviewed by the Wine Blogging Review Coalition (WBRC).
Finally, as Dr. Debs points out, people want multiple points of view when determining whether or not to purchase a wine. The multiple points of view should read like a conversation. Here is an example (albeit not anything close to what could be achieved by the WBRC.
http://www.boutiquewinecellar.com/wine_detail.php?wineid=105_1003_1003
Jeff,
Two quick things - very interesting idea. There are a couple things on OWC that might help.
1. The Wine Bloggers group - There are darn near 200 bloggers there (filtering out interested parties maybe 150) and this is something that group could take a look at and discuss.
2. Saw your reference to the WBC ‘08, but as part of that we are pulling together a “Canon of Ethics” for wine blogging. RichardA started it on his blog and we’re hoping to gather comments and discuss it (hopefully get to version 1.0) at the WBC ‘08. Would love your thoughts on that as well.
Thats it for now. Need to chew these thoughts over some more. I would think that @dhonig has a point but maybe I need to read your other post before forming an opinion.
Just read @Kevinfinn’s comment and it does bring to mind what kind of aggregator site are you thinking about? And aren’t there multiple sites that could do it? And if you do that, don’t you just become a marketing vehicle for one of these sites (boutiquewinecellar is a fine way to do it, but what about the others - I’m not going to post them here just so as to avoid looking like I am advocating for a different site over that one, which would dilute the point)?
IMHO, It starts to make @dhonig’s comment more salient.
As always, interesting commentary. I love the baseball reference.
Organizing wine bloggers may fall into the proverbial “herding cats” category. There are so many levels of knowledge and commitment. Then there are so many possibilities for disagreement. The major print publication work as there is general agreement within the staff on what is the proper “house” style. However, the power of wine blogging is that there is no such agreement so you can find someone that fits your palate, instead of conforming to a publications taste.
Concerning scoring, as soon you as you have group scoring (stars, points etc.) those ratings mean nothing as my 90 (god forbid I ever do that again) and yours may have very little to do with each other.
Despite some of the issues, this is still an idea that should be nurtured so we can see what it can grow into.
I think it’s a neat idea. I’ve often pondered the need for aggregated and averaged reviews. There are some Web 2.0 sites that try to do that, but I don’t think they have done it well yet. Coordinating this with a set of wine bloggers may be a great way to do it.
There is an aspect of “this is the elitist’s club” that will turn off some bloggers. But the contributors could be rotated to allow more reviewers to participate. And you could argue that there already is an “elitist club” in the wine blogging community, but that doesn’t stop anyone from creating their own blog.
In my opinion, it would have to be updated regularly to gain critical mass (i.e. daily, if not several times daily). It would take a lot of contributors to make that happen, and either a chief with a lot of time or an automated management system.
While it’s an enormous challenge to pull this together and make it happen, I think it’s a worthwhile venture.
Someone once told me that organizing bloggers is like trying to herd cats.
But I think people are missing what one really big cat could do (http://www.redwinebuzz.com/winesooth/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/voltron1.jpg)
Not going to happen. Great idea, but just not possible. We’ve talked about this on Catavino, by creating a magazine that would be printed, a very similar idea with blogger contributors. But the effort and time organizing this is not something that could be done cheaply. You would need to write a job description for the “chief editor” and then find a way to give them a salary.
Also wine bloggers thrive on the fact that we are individuals. Our combined voice is starting to effect online sales. Through the fact that as we all write we are showing up more and more at the top of the search results. Your friend may not know or care about blogs, but he may also be influenced by them without knowing it.
Great dream, though I really don’t see it as a future.
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I see what you’re trying to do, but it looks (to me) like another version of the rich getting richer. In other words, you are creating a way for a few existing and successful wine bloggers to monopolize this field the way Wine Spectator and Wine Advocate have the print field.
Isn’t it better to let each blogger build his or her own “brand” by good writing and hard work, and to support each other with cross links and stories?
Blogger has a wonderful new gadget that will take your blogroll and automatically sort it by the newest posts, with a clip from the post. This means the most productive bloggers are always near the top. It also gives “the new guy on the block” the chance to become a player.