Paper Tigers, Barriers to Entry and the 2009 Wine Blog Watch List
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.
