When “Altruism” Needs to Equal “Cooperation” Pt. II

Technology is coming hard at the wine industry – harder than the first few waves of the Internet, eCommerce, and social media over the last 12-14 years.  The technology innovations that are forcing change will make previous technology iterations look like the halcyon days of simplicity.  However, at the core of all of this technology progressiveness is data – not just data that helps run a wine business internally, but also data that helps the sales value-chain sell, too.

But, here’s the rub – mobile applications, third-party eCommerce sales and all of the other technology-related opportunities that can have a positive impact on the bottom line while creating new customers for the wine business all run on a very important thing – the ability to have clean, re-usable information about the wines that are available for sale in the U.S. Unfortunately, that data is very difficult to come by and its cloistered by individual companies with propriety.  Gathering this data is so difficult, it could almost be its own currency.

Very simply, wine industry data standardization needs to occur—a mechanism in which all selling information for all domestic wines for sale in the U.S. (direct or distribution) can be accessed, including label shots and selling copy, in the same format.  For that reason, services like OwnIT by Cruvee, which is attempting to create a free winery-supplied storehouse of this information, and the AVIN, similar to an ISBN for books, are very, very interesting.

But, here’s the rub. I mentioned in part I of this post that any large industry-wide standardization that has occurred (in any industry) has typically been done so by a non-profit that didn’t have commercial interest outside of benevolence for the common industry good.  Typically, these associations are member-supported – like any association or consortium.  Without the support of a swath of leadership and influencers in any industry, the collaboration that is necessary to get to a standard and drive action that benefits everybody doesn’t happen.  Period.  End of sentence.

This would all be well and good and another rhetorical “what-if” conversation best enjoyed three glasses into the evening were it not for a very pregnant opportunity unfolding.

Custom Top-Level domain (TLD) names, the equivalent to .com, .net and .org are now going to be made available for sale – there are a couple of stipulations, however.  It’s not easy to get an extension and it’s expensive.  Reports indicate that securing a Top-Level domain like .ibm or .fedex will cost north of a $500K.  If it’s a general extension like .wine for example, the registering party will have to demonstrate some greater value for the domain than capitalistic interest, amongst other things.  Net-net, this is a perfect time for the industry to come together in collaboration to secure the domain .wine, for the benefit of all.

Of course, the practical application of this would still be a mystery to me if I didn’t see and hear what the plans are for the domain extension .jobs. 

The .jobs domain is being administered by a non-profit employer/HR association called DirectEmployers.  As an industry consortium they count most of the Fortune 500 as members.  And, they are administering the registration of the .job extension to companies like IBM and others who are listing all of their job openings at the domain extension.

Are you interested in working for IBM, but tired of sifting through Monster.com and the rest of the job boards that are populated with “work from home” ads?  Likewise, are you having a hard time navigating seven layers deep into IBM’s mammoth web site to even find their jobs page?  Ah, instead just go to IBM.jobs where their career section is directly navigable.

In addition, DirectEmployers is also creating a vast data-driven web presence that will aggregate all of the jobs that are listed on .jobs domains.  So, they’re opening up what has previously been closed off via competing job board web sites.  As a part of this development they are setting up the job data such that “Joe Consumer” can search for a job by virtually any criteria – nurses.jobs, floridanurses.jobs – it’s all there.

I’ve been working professionally around the Internet since ’96 and while I occasionally get hyperbolic, not much gets me excited.  I had a mouth agape moment when I connected the dots on the Top-Level domains, .jobs and the translation to the wine industry.

You should have a mouth agape moment, as well.  Why?  Because if direct-to-consumer and direct-to-trade sales are the future of the wine business given the woeful state of three-tier distribution then what I’m talking about makes the universe of U.S. wine for sale much more navigable, findable and useable, for the benefit of the industry.

It’s would be a utility service like other infrastructure that we can’t imagine living without – um, like city sidewalks and running water.

In simple terms, here’s what it could mean (emphasis on “could.”)

• A wine industry consortium secures industry-wide support and develops a central repository for domestic wine data

• This same wine industry consortium applies to ICANN for the .Wine extension

• Once approved, the wine industry consortium allows domestic wineries to register their .wine URL – like drycreekvineyard.wine, for example

• Dry Creek Vineyard places their eCommerce store on this domain

• The wine industry consortium uses the central repository of domestic wine information to start slicing and dicing it based on the 1001 ways you can search for a wine

• The wine industry consortium creates a web-based application like jobs.jobs is creating (American.wine, for example) to act as an open interface for wine searching.

• A consumer searches for “Sonoma, Dry Creek, California Zinfandel” and ALL wines that are available for sale direct from the winery appear, with unified, standardized copy, label and selling information.  Consumer decides between a couple of choices and buys the Dry Creek Vineyard Zinfandel by clicking through directly to the winery web site.

• Consumer is very happy having navigated the universe of domestic wine into a smaller pool of wine and finally to the wine he wants to buy, directly from the winery.

• The wineries and the U.S. wine industry is very, very happy with this, as well

Now, admittedly, there is much work that needs to go into this in order to make it happen, but my fundamental point is this – the wine industry has a very real opportunity to not hew to the vagaries of market development, but rather lead it for the benefit of all, untethering itself from the feeling of lack of control – the wine industry has always been benevolent and altruistic for the common good, now is a great time to apply that same social philosophy to itself.