Proposals for Roundtables

By On April 14, 2009 · Leave a Comment · In 2009 - Lisbon, Sessions, Speakers

roundtableWe’re already fielding emails on potential topics for our roundtable sessions on Saturday. Because this is supposed to be a bit of an unconference, we figure that fielding emails is a closed approach and doesn’t really support the whole unconference model. So starting today, please leave in the comments below your ideas for topics to discuss. We currently have 4 to 5 slots available. We only ask that topics take into account the theme of the conference: The Social Wine Brand.  We will explore other areas if people are interested, but would like to see what this loose idea might spawn from all the creative minds out there.

All responses will be considered and hopefully commented on by others (threaded comments are great). We will then ask some of the more popular contributors to expand their ideas into a post, which will be published on this blog by mid to late summer. Of those expanded topics, only some of these will become the official roundtable discussions, while others may find a life of their own right here on this blog.

For now, just let us know what’s on your mind!

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  • Justin

    Any chance of getting someone in be they blogger, grower, or whoever who has improved their bottom line as a direct result of Web 2.0? Would be very interesting to hear from someone like that…

    • http://www.cortesdecima.pt Carrie Jorgensen

      Justin, in the current economic situation, noone is improving their bottom line! We are all just trying to keep overheads to a minimum, and hoping that people will be able to afford to keep drinking wine!

  • http://www.bkwine.com//blog/bkwinebriefblog.htm Per, BKWine

    Monetization: premium contents an option?
    How can you earn money from all work that you put into running a wine blog. Ads on the page is one way but unless you have HUGE traffic (and who does?) it generates minimal money. (that’s at least our experience) Can premium (paid-for) contents be another way? There are a few (very few) examples: eRobert Parker, JancisRobinson.com, and…, and… well, that’s it (at least almost). But is it an option for mere mortals? If it is, how do you do it? What do you offer? How do you add sufficient added value to make it worth paying for? Or perhaps there are other viable options: sponsorships,….?

    • http://www.cortesdecima.pt Carrie Jorgensen

      Per, the problem of course with sponsorship, is it makes the blog look biased to the 'brands' who are able to lavish money on sponsorship.

      No different than the advertisements which Portuguese wineries pay BIG BUCKS for in those glossy Portuguese monthly wine magazines, and surprise, surpise, their wines get great ratings!

      • http://catavino.net ryan

        Carrie I think Per might not be, or rather I think we need to move beyond the idea of Winery sponsors. Why not a car company? A cell phone? or otherwise, who want to reach the audience that is “wine lovers” rather than a winery trying to reach consumers. Also larger bodies or wine generics might see sponsorship as a way to show wines that the blogger/writer can't get ahold of. In this way the money for ratings model is not quite as tricky though there may still be issues.

        I do hope this can be one of the sessions at the conference. Wine bloggers would like to do more, but need to find a way to pay for it!

        • http://www.bkwine.com//blog/bkwinebriefblog.htm Per, BKWine

          Well, I don't really have any “a priori”. My outlook was, firstly that of a wine “journalist” or similar. I was not really thinking about wineries or that kind of organisations. Secondly, it was that of someone who blogs at least partly as part of a “business” (i.e. making a living). So, when proposing this subject I don't think about wineries nor do I think about the bloggers who blog “just for fun” and live from, say, selling cars during the daytime.

          I am very doubtful that 'sponsoring' is a good option. Google Ads are certainly not a good option (it seems). Paid-for contents? Perhaps. Some other model? Perhaps.

          What is very clear, though, is that blogging does require some kind of business model for it to be a sustainable model for professionals or aspiring professionals to continue to produce *quality contents*.

          What that model is is very unclear.

  • Stefania Doria

    Hi Ryan, following you as always, even if sometimes it's difficult for me, as you're are so active in the wine blogging field! My compliments!

    A good point to discuss would be this: is there a ROI or ROB on wine blogging?? Is it really possible to measure the success of a wine blog? The answers I got so far are not so clear..as you this is a key point in my thesis…

    Another question: how wine bloggers and wineries blogging use all Social Media (in case they use them all) and which is the importance they give to each of them? I mean which is the best one in trying to reach the consumer: blogging, social networks, microblogging, photosharing, videosharing, podcast or all of them together?

    Is it still worth for a winery to have a web site, even if very well done (a pro po: when is a wine web site well done in yr opinion?? Are there some analyses accordingly in the net? I found an old post of yours…), or will the wine blog substitute it in the end?

    And finally: why should a winery blog? Which are the real advantages for their wine brand? I hope this could be interesting to discuss, anyway I'm interested for sure!

    What do you think about it?

    I'll get back to you later on, thks for yr great post, cheers Stefy :-) )

  • http://www.bkwine.com//blog/bkwinebriefblog.htm Per, BKWine

    EUROPEAN ?? wine blogging

    The Americans have it easy. One country. One language.

    Europe is a bit more complicated. (A bit more interesting? A bit more frustrating?) Many countries, many languages, many cultures. Is there such a thing as European wine blogging, or can there be?

    A European wine blogger has two options: blog for your country/language/culture, or try and reach beyond that.

    The very nature of the internet implies that blogging is INTERNATIONAL but that is easier said than done.

    What does a wine blogger need to do to blog European or International? Is the best option to simply give in and just blog in English? Or perhaps multilingual? How do you then reach audiences in different countries? Can you really hope to reach audiences beyond your own limited geography? If so, how?

    And secondly, what consequences does that have for the business model of blogging? For example, which winery would want to place ads on a blog that has readers “a little bit everywhere”? (Especially if they only sell in countries X, Y and Z and nowhere else.)

  • http://www.bkwine.com//blog/bkwinebriefblog.htm Per, BKWine

    HOLISTIC SOCIAL WINE BLOGGINS

    Well, without going over the top, it's rather along the lines of Stefania:

    Blogging is one thing. And then you have podcasts, vidcasts, YouTube, Viddler, Vimeo, more blogs, Flickr, plain old vanilla web sites, commenting, social networking sites, twittering, twit & video & web directories, SEO and what not…

    How do you organise all these different “web 2.0″ things? How do you make it a coherent whole? How do you avoid spending hours and hours updating various elements of what you do on the web?

    Or to put it in another way: what tools and platforms makes sense to use on the internet and how to make them work well together for you internet web activity?

  • http://www.vinix.it/registrazione.php?lang=eng Filippo Ronco

    During the vinix unplugged unconference that I've hosted in Italy, I had no enough time to show my presentation. So, I'd love to do it at ewbc 2009, it is about how you can gain people attention. It takes 5/8 minutes and I think it is in topic with the main theme of the conference. Let me know if I have the chance.

    Cheers and see you soon !

    Fil.

  • http://www.vinix.it/registrazione.php?lang=eng Filippo Ronco

    During the vinix unplugged unconference that I've hosted in Italy, I had no enough time to show my presentation. So, I'd love to do it at ewbc 2009, it is about how you can gain people attention. It takes 5/8 minutes and I think it is in topic with the main theme of the conference. Let me know if I have the chance.

    Cheers and see you soon !

    Fil.