March 8 2009
With the 3rd Annual American Wine Blog Awards now past us, and the torch for the 4th edition passed and now governed by the Open Wine Consortium, this is a good time to pause and reflect on the state of the wine blogosphere.
Some may consider this navel-gazing and self-absorption of the highest order and it probably is. The person that talks about how important what he/she does is, does not do anything very important.
Yet, I also believe, without equivocation, in the future of online content, regardless of niche, so it is not an overstatement to say that today’s blogger will be comingled with tomorrow’s mainstream press with the only difference separating the pro and pro-am being a paycheck, and given trends, it may not even be a separation of dollars and cents.
This should not be a revelation to anybody. The democratization of content is already upon us, arbiters of quality vis a vis mainstream press are paper tigers. Literally.
Other wine bloggers have made recommendations for improvement for the American Wine Blog Awards and there are a number of additional swirling positions around advertising, ethics and such. These issues will not resolve themselves overnight and nor do I want to get into an ideological battle. In this regard, to mix metaphors, chance favors the prepared, discretion is the better part of valor and freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.
Instead of covering well-trodden ground, what I want to focus on today is what I believe to be the single greatest barrier to widespread adoption of wine blog content online – the lack of usage of RSS feeds.
If I could wave a magic wand that would grant me one wish it would be that every single person that reads or happens across a wine blog would subscribe to RSS feeds.
However, my traffic stats, an unscientific study by Winery Website Report, and Steve Rubel from Micropersuasion tell me that content consumption via RSS feeds are anemic (11%) and potentially not growing.
I have been consuming content in an RSS feed for over four years. To me, it is second nature and it totally changed the way I lived my life as a consumer of information – books, magazines, television, the newspaper, my online activity and knowledge management all changed because of RSS feeds.
No kidding. I will say it again. Reading content online via RSS feeds changed my life as a consumer of information. I also posit that you cannot “get” social media if you do not read information via an RSS feed. The syndication of content via RSS are the wheels on the car that enable the engine of social media sharing.
My wife just set-up a feed reader in the last six weeks and it is as if a benevolent Pandora’s Box opened for her. That is not an unusual occurrence when you go from seeking things in an outbound capacity to inbound consumption of information.
The reason that consuming information via an RSS feed is important is because there is a finite capacity to proactively seek out information. With the explosion of wine blogs, there is simply no good way to keep track of even 25-30 wine blogs, let alone 100, which represents about 15% of the total wine blogs out there, without reading them in a Feed reader via an RSS feed.
Simply put, wine blogging cannot grow as an influential medium until more people use RSS and feed readers.
So, here is my request, if you are reading this blog and you are not reading this via a feed reader, and you do not have a feed reader set-up, please do so immediately. The below video will give you additional information on why it is important and how to do so.
Okay, now that you’re convinced that reading wine blog content and other topical areas via an RSS feed is important, I want to introduce you to three wine blogs that were not a part of the American Wine Blog Awards, but should be next year. It goes without saying that you should subscribe to their RSS feeds.
My Daily Wine by Amy Atwood
Why You Should Read her Blog: She is in the trade, she is wicked smart, and most days you will find her writing something A) interesting and B) not talked about anywhere else
What Would Alpana Drink by Alpana Singh
Why You Should Read her Blog: She’s a Master Sommelier, she is in Chicago, she provides a grounded perspective on wine, she focuses on food + wine, and, frankly, she’s just simply the real deal.
What Would Alpana Drink RSS Feed Link
Wine Expedition by Neil and Jeff
Why You Should Read Their Blog: This is one of the few general interest, not overly heady, wine blogs that is actually interesting and genuine.
Posted in, Around the Wine Blogosphere. Permalink | Comments (7) |
You think the biggest problem with wine blogs is technology (RSS)? In my opinion that is really putting the cart before the horse.
In my opinion the biggest problem with wine blogs is just getting people to read them - even once. When so many blogs have shoddy photography and nothing but dry tasting notes, why should any reader bother? It’s boring to read.
I believe that for the wine blogging medium to grow we need to collectively pull our heads out of our butts and learn to write what people would be willing to read. Stop fetishizing wine.
My favorite wine books are not the reference tomes like Parker’s but instead the books that tell a story. Alpana Singh’s book is fun and Kermit Lynch’s “Adventures on the Wine Trail” is amazing. Lynch tells wonderful, often funny stories of some of the greatest winemakers in the world. He paints a picture and includes tasting notes but does so in a non-intimadating way that even people who aren’t into wine can understand.
Currently the only audience for many wine blogs is other wine bloggers. In my opinion we have to stop writing for each other and instead focus on bridging the divide between the people who know about wine and those who don’t. Once we accomplish that, we’ll find plenty of new subscribers.
Dale,
You make a good point, probably too lengthy for a comment response, actually.
I know that the percentage of people that actually read my blog consistently is a small minority (10-20%) relative to the traffic I get from search.
While content may be the issue, I think it’s also lack of knowledge on RSS feeds.
Bookmarks, long ago, stopped being useful for most people.
You have to start somewhere and if just a small portion of the people that come to my blog subscribe to an RSS feed they can stick their toe in the water of wine blogs and see that there is some good content being written—even if its not here, but amongst a good number of other wine bloggers.
I don’t think the comparison to books is completely dead-on, but I agree that overall the type of wine enthusiast that you and I are is vastly under-served by content. Spectator, Advocate, Enthusiast all do not resonate with me.
While writing the types of content that people want to read is a place to start—where do you start? Is it content for beginners? Content that is narrative?
Generally speaking, though, what we’re both saying is its eyeballs that need to increase. We can quibble about RSS and quality of content, but at the end of the day we agree on the fundamental aspect.
Thanks for commenting,
Jeff
For a lot of people, I think, it has to do with the aesthetic. I don’t like how sterile the readers make everything look. I like reading a blog post in its natural home—with all the graphics, with the color scheme the author chose for the page, etc. It’s like seeing animals in the wild versus locked up in cages at the zoo. Which is a better experience?
I’m just not convinced that aggregating content will ever catch on with the majority of people. The litany of “review” or “digest” magazines that exist have not replaced demand for the real long-form versions. TV programs like “The Soup” that summarize other shows have not drawn people away from the actual shows themselves. People don’t want everything at once, all up in their face. It’s overwhelming.
I believe blog posts are built to be read as stand-alone units in their home blogs, not just as one more little blurb of information to get lost in a whole confused sea of them.
Jesse,
Thanks for the comment, you make a good point and good analogies.
I understand where you’re coming from.
Ironic coming from me, because I suppose my blog has been judged with some aesthetic beauty.
Here is my question, though—you frequently meet with friends around wine, you have a blog and it’s nicely designed.
But, I’m going to guess that a small percentage of the people you drink wine with have ever heard of my blog, even though they are young and supposedly a wine blog demographic.
How can I get those folks to read my site and a bunch of others with regularity so we can create a mass big enough to wield influence?
What I’m really driving at, RSS aside, is helping wine blogging grow as a sphere of content that is enjoyed by people like you and your group of friends in the Young Winos Club.
Any suggestions or thoughts are appreciated!!
All the best and thanks for reading,
I have to admit that I only started using my RSS feed reader recently and I love it.
Thanks for the shout out to MyDailyWine and the link to Alpana’s blog.
Hey Jeff—great questions.
First of all, there’s always the reality that the majority of wine buyers will never read wine blogs… just as the majority of wine buyers in years past didn’t subscribe to wine magazines. (Most people buy wine at some point, few want to read about it.) The Young Winos group includes a fair number of such people—casual drinkers who enjoy the “classes,” but don’t want any homework.
Among those Winos who do enjoy reading about wine, though, I think the tendency is to turn to blogs first before considering subscribing to a print publication. As the author of the blog and the online reviews, I do what I can to encourage this trend; I link to other blogs frequently, and we sometimes base our tasting themes on ideas I find on the grogosphere. For example, an upcoming tasting of ours is based on a Vinography post:
http://www.youngwinos.com/events/la-chapter-meeting-its-the
When our members discover the various wine blogs via links on our page and in our reviews, I’m not entirely sure how much stickiness there is. Nor am I aware whether people add the blogs to their readers, or just continue to visit them remotely (I’m sure not everyone else in my generation shares my “aesthetics” hang-up).
Anyway, I’ll keep linking—and hopefully you’ll see an upswing of Young Winos commenting on your posts.
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You’re definitely right about RSS. Simply put, RSS allows people to access more information in less time. If they cull their feed reader to keep only the best around, they will be exposed to better information and it will be more convenient. We’ll all be smarter!