BottleTalk - an introduction Add/Read Comments
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Wine hits web 2.0! Or does it? BottleTalk looks the business; all reflective logo, beta tag line, tags and chunky boxes. Does it though fulfil the community aspects, data sharing, the exchange of links and the like that epitomises the new web?
It is certainly getting there. What I require though is for easy (ie no intervention required) input/pick-up of the tasting notes that I record here on Spittoon and see them, within minutes, on BottleTalk. There is more to Web 2.0 than slapping a beta moniker onto a logo! What is needed is for the worldwide network of wine blogs, to be able to enter wine reviews quickly and easily; but I don't want to have to log in and copy across everything I enter here on Spittoon.
And this is just what they are working on at the moment. I have emailed them a few ideas and I am sure the Wine/Web2.0 evangelist Tim at WineCast has other suggestions on how the site could be developed for the benefit of all too.
There is also more to wine than basic tasting notes. Where is the search for food and wine pairings or more general news items? Links to blogs and the original posting if there is one? Recording of alcohol level? Link to a retailer or a retailer review (ie UKWOL)?
My superficial play with this new site/concept may not have revealed its full scope and an email exchange with the creators - specifically Mark - could really develop the site. Without coming across too negatively there are tags, friend lists, user profiles, rating of wines via a star system and the like. One of the problems which any wine database has to grapple with is the entry of wines and the duplication of entries (the major problem that the now defunct WineSoft database had). As you enter a wines name suggestions appear next to the input form - which is a good touch. But again I don't want to enter these details manually!
The company is based in the UK; a boon in these American web-dominated days. For the first time I am excited by the potential of this Web2.0 wine site.
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Comments
Hi Andrew
Thanks for the great review and thanks for the valuable feedback. It is early days for us but you have hit on some challenges we will be facing - ease of adding wines, duplication, other useful content and possible aggregation of tasting notes/wine experiences added via blogs and other sources.
The first challenge is partly solved by us loading as many wines from retailers so that users can find these wines via search so don't have to add them.
Duplication we have tried to solve by suggesting possible wine matches when a user starts to enter a winename.
We will be launching a blog in the next few days which we hope will add something extra news wise.
Aggregation is obviously a lot harder to solve but well worth investigating.
Cheers
Mark
Written by: Mark | on December 6, 2006 3:38 PM
Bottletalk looks pretty promising. I'm excited to dive into it further. Your readers may also be interested in WineLog (http://www.winelog.net). We're rolling out new features every week.
Your grand scheme of being able to review a wine on your blog and have it show up on the tasting note site automatically is something that is in the work. A few of us (including the folks at Winecast) are working on a standard "microformat" which would facilitate the aggregation of wine reviews, among other things.
Keep up the good work at Spittoon. Thanks.
Written by: Jason Coleman | on December 9, 2006 9:02 PM