In the blink of an eye, quick as a hiccup, Wine 2.0’s newly released social network is up to 790 members.
Back in April I wrote a post about merging Wine 2.0 and the Open Wine Consortium, also with a social network.
That suggestion went over like a a helium balloon in Anarctica.
One commenter on the post had the insight (temerity?) to suggest that OWC was a network and Wine 2.0 was an event. This was, of course, before the Wine Blogger Conference was announced, which is, well, an event.
I don’t know what to make of this, but I do know Wine 2.0 has something interesting going on. Aside from their social network, which is well and good and interesting, the more interesting aspect is their consumer events which are pulling a lot of people in.
1000 + folks at their event in New York last week.
To put that in perspective, consider that hundreds if not thousands of non profits put on wine-oriented events ever year in every city in America. Every single one of them would kill to have a 1000 paying people in attendance.
That is something.
Even if it was 800 paying people and 200+ hangers on, it’s still impressive.
The shift that I came around to that helps me really get behind Wine 2.0 is I see it as an expansion of the now defunct Wine Brats from the 1990’s (good ideas, but no full lift) and I see it as a legitimately more urbane, updated and interesting version of the Wine Tasters Guild.
Net-net, people in the wine business may bemoan the three tier system, but in this regard, wine marketing, a brokering device to create a winery - consumer push / pull mechanism is very much needed.
Since I’m wont to wax hyperbolic, I’ll continue down the path; the vision of growth that I would have for the organization is probably not a big enough vision for the potential that exists for a business like Wine 2.0 to aggregate and engage members from the trade and consumers.
The Open Wine Consortium may be a network, but methinks Wine 2.0 is going to turn into a business.