About Michael Stajer

BIOGRAPHY
Michael Stajer

Michael is an entrepreneur and attorney who has founded and managed several successful businesses. He has helped lead the wine industry online and bring technology to the beverage industry.

Current CEO/Founder of WineCommune LLC - a leader in using technology to improve the wine business. WineCommune operates JJ Buckley Fines Wines (jjbuckley.com) an online fine wine retailer, WineZap (winezap.com) a wine search engine, and WineCommune (winecommune.com) an online wine marketplace. Further, WineCommune help's other wine industry businesses such as retailers and distributors use technology to improve their operations and sales.

WineCommune's annual revenues are close to $30 million and it has been profitable since 1999. The company has little debt and never took outside financing. It employees thirty-five professionals who are committed to building the next generation wine business. The company has received several recognitions and accolades. Most recently it was the named the #1 Fastest Growing Company in the Bay Area by San Francisco Business Times. Earlier in 2007 it was listed #35 on the Inc. Magazine 500 - a review of the fastest growing private companies.

In April, Michael was named a semi-finalist in Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year 2008 competition. Final results will be announed in June 2008.

As Managing Partner of SGB, Inc. he helped grow a small neighborhood restaurant into a multi location restaurant company. It was there he developed his love of wine.

Currently, Michael mentors the managers of two startup companies with exciting new innovations. He is actively seeking to make some angel or early stage investments in new ideas.

Although he does not practice, Michael is a attorney and member of the State Bar of California. He does handle several pro bono matters per year and stays current on legal matters.

Michael has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Time Magazine, Business Week, Entrepreneur Magazine and several regional publications and television and radio shows.

Contact:
Michael Stajer
stajer@winecommune.com

WineCommune LLC #1 on San Francisco Business Times Fast 100

SAN FRANCISCO - October 24, 2007 – Oakland based wine retailer, WineCommune. LLC, has recently been named the #1 fastest-growing private Bay Area firm by the San Francisco Business Journal. WineCommune LLC, the parent company of WineCommune.com, WineZap.com and JJBuckley.com, is the latest endeavor by Bay Area entrepreneurs Michael Stajer and Shaun Bishop.

Since their first profit posting in 2001, this wine-wielding duo has published a phenomenal 1,382% growth in revenue, skyrocketing them to the top of the list and piquing interest from a number of venture capital and private equity firms.

“Lately we’ve been receiving a lot of recognition from the community, which we’re very proud of,” says Stajer, CEO and co-founder of WineCommune. “It just goes to show that, even in a crowded marketplace, if you consistently stay ahead of the trend and put all of your focus on the customer, they’ll come back… and hopefully even tell a friend or two.”

In the last six months alone, WineCommune has been recognized by several reputable establishments Including:A #35 ranking in Inc Magazine’s list of ‘Fastest Growing Companies’Recognition as one of the ‘Top Ten Online Wine Retailers’ by Food and Wine MagazineMultiple features in both Business Week and Entrepreneur Magazine.

WineCommune’s rapid growth and inspirational success story have spurred continued interest within the venture capital and private equity community. Although modest, Stajer has enjoyed the courting process.“We’ve received some lucrative offers, but I don’t think we’re ready to sell outright just yet,” says Stajer. “But, with that being said, we are seriously looking at some angel or early stage investments in a few new ideas.”

Stajer is keeping these new ideas hush-hush at the moment, but comments, “Unlike other industries, wine on the Internet is still in the wild west phase. There is no established leader and there has been no consolidation. The opportunity is big. ”WineCommune. LLC is now moving into their 6th year of operation and expects more than $17 million in revenues for 2007.

Click here to read the SF Business Times profile on WineCommune.

WineCommune LLC #35 on Inc 500 List of Fastest Growing US Companies

Oakland based WineCommune was recently ranked #35 on the 'Inc. 500' list of fastest growing US firms. Rankings were based on percentage of revenue growth from 2003 through 2006, and to be eligible, businesses must have had 2003 revenue of at least $200,000 and 2006 revenue of at least $2 million.

Despite a dot-com crash and harsh regulations for online wine retailers, WineCommune has managed to flourish, posting a revenue growth of 2,708% over the last three years.
"It is an honor to be recognized by Inc. 500," says WineCommune CEO, Michael Stajer. "Great customers and an irreplaceable staff have been such a driving force for our organization, and we plan on continuing to push the envelope within the wine industry."

Unparalleled customer service and constant innovation have kept WineCommune on the fast track to success. New features are consistently being added to the site, the most recent of which include same-day delivery, YouTube wine reviews, Facebook applications, and a 24-hour customer service hotline.

This latest accolade comes on the heels of Food & Wine's recent naming of WineCommune to the '2007 Top 10 Online Wine Retailer' list, further solidifying them as a leader in the online world of wine.

The 'Inc. 500' results were released on Thursday, August 23rd, and were published in their 26th annual Top 500 issue, made available at newsstands August 28th, 2007.

Out of the Blogging Biz..

I am officially ending my blog. If you are a regular reader, you probably have recognized that the quality and quantity of my posts has declined considerably since I started. The problem is twofold:

1. I don't have the time to devote to properly sit down and write a thoughtful piece that adds something new to the wine blogosphere
2. I can't talk about my best ideas! The business is competative and I can't be giving away my next opportunities.

There is certainly plenty of worthless noise in blogging, and if I can't write something thoughtful, I don't want to contribute to the static. For real substance, check out:

• winelibrary.tv
• vinography.com

I will keep my biography (below) up to date. I am still interested in meeting and communicating with people in the wine and/or tech business so please feel free to email me at stajer@winecommune.com.

Raising Money for "Sliced Bread" in the Valley

You are the guy who came up with "sliced bread." You need to raise some angel or VC money to get your idea of the ground.

Say $5 million. $250k for swank Palo Alto offices. $500k for organizational costs, lawyers, accountants. $2m in salaries for you, engineers, business development people, marketing people, account executives, salespeople, interns, your hot secretary. $250k for a website with the latest web 2.0 ajaxy goodness - probably a social network for people that love sliced bread. $1m for a huge multicity launch party, advertising campaign, and buzz.

You walk into the fancy board room of the first VC on Sand Hill Road, fire up your projector and start your talk. Your presentation consists of one ppt slide - showing a piece of sliced bread. That is it. This is idea is so good, its potential so self-evident, that is all you need. You shut, up sit down and open your briefcase to hold the cash they are about to hand over.

Instead, however, they start peppering you with questions:

• Will people really buy sliced bread?
• How about cakes and the loaves of whole-wheat, rye, pumpernickel?
• What kind of knifes or machines will be needed?
• What about the crumbs left after the slicing?
• Could you partner with the knife industry and sell a machine that allows people to do this themselves at home?
• Have you filed your patent application?
• Can you do something about the crusts?
• The end-pieces?


• Isn't bread just popular now because of that Bread & Chocolate movie? What happens after the "buzz" around bread dies down?


• Will people think they're getting less bread to eat?
• How will people pick up the loaf to take home after it's sliced?
• Will people pay extra for something they already do themselves?
• Who is paying for it - will the consumer pay extra or will the bakery eat the cost for a competitive advantage?
• Why slice it so thin - don't people like thicker slices?
• Can you slice bagels?
• Did you turn in your TPS report this week?
• What about Challah?
• What about cubed bread?

Those jerks! You are handing them the greatest business idea since the wheel, and all they can do is raise objections.

The point - ideas on their own are worthless. Execution is everything.

Special thanks to Genesis U and their upcoming Mastering Due Dilligence online course for some of the VC questions about sliced bread.

WineZap's New Facebook Application

30 is the new 20.
Brown is the new black.
Black is the new pink.
Entourage is the new Arrested Development.
Facebook is the new My Space, Geocities, eBay, Yahoo, Google (take your pick).

And WineZap has its very own Facebook application. WineZap's My Wine Cellar is a simple application that makes it easy to track your wine collection. You can view what wines you have in your cellar and share your collection with your friends. You and your friend's can view each other's collections. You can review wines and read reviews written by others.

Visit WineZap's My Wine Cellar on Facebook.

Anti-Wine Consumer/Retailer Legislation Hits Five States in 2007

So far in 2007, legislation has been introduced or proposed in Florida, Illinois, New Mexico, Oregon and Texas designed to restrict consumer's ability to purchase and have shipped to them wine from wine merchants. This legislation was pushed by special interests (notably large distributors) looking to protect themselves from competition at the expense of consumer rights.

Specialty Wine Retailers Association has created an e-mail list for wine enthusiasts who want to stay informed of wine-related direct shipping issues and participate in political outreach efforts. To sign up for the list go to: http://www.specialtywineretailers.org/consumers.php

Nice article from the Oakland Tribune

It is always nice to be recognized in your hometown. The Oakland Tribune ran a nice article about us today in the Business section:

WELL-SEASONED, with good balance and a smooth finish, 8-year-old WineCommune.com of Oakland survived the dot-com bust, ripening into one of the country's most established online wine businesses.

Click here to read the full article.

We are hiring!

Just a quick note to say that we are hiring a few entry level positions. Wine knowledge is generally required, but we are willing to teach the right person.

Click here to see our job openings.

Power to the People!

OK, maybe the wine lovers are not crying for revolution as if they were 18th century French peasants. But David McWherter (right) has found his own Marie Antoinette in the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB).

The PLCB is the only entity allowed to sell wine in Pennsylvania. If you want to buy or sell wine in that state, you must go through them. You cannot buy wine from out of state retailers, because they cannot legally ship wine into the state. The state justifies this with the standard group of arguments about taxing alcohol and controlling and dangerous substance. But they also claim the monopoly results in better prices and selection than the free market would.

McWherter, a blogger and wine enthusiast from Penn, has written a great post about how he used WineZap to illuminate pricing and availability at the PLCB. Although he uses a small sample, he highlights that PLCB prices tend to be higher than wines generally available at retailers across the country. He also realizes that many of the wines can't even be found at his local PLCB shop.

The Best RSS Feeds for the Wine Lover

RSS (Real Simple Syndication) is a format for syndicating web site content to readers. For example, a news site may create an RSS feed of top stories. You would run an RSS "aggregator" which would download the RSS feed regularly and display the top stories to you in an easy to read format. Click a link in the aggregator to go to the news site to see the full story.

If you use an RSS reader (try Google's if you need one), you can bring content from many different wine sites directly to you. Here are just a few of the top ones:

• Wine Spectator's News
• eRobertParker.com - includes recent topics at Mark Squires BB
• SF Gate - the San Francisco Chronicle's website has a great wine section
• NY Times - Wine section
• Woot Wine - One week, one wine for sale
• Wine Library TV - Get Gary's high energy wine videos
• Premier Cru - New inventory as its added
• My own JJBuckley.com - New inventory as its added

The retailer feeds are great. If you pay attention to your aggregator, you can often scoop new wines right when the retailer adds them to inventory before the general public finds them.

Did I miss any feeds - please add a comment with a link.

By the numbers... Quick Stats (in a quick post) (updated)

Just have a minute for a quick post today. Just some numbers I have been mulling over this week in my head.

Value of US retail wine market: $20 billion/year
Number of regular wine drinkers in US: 2 million

Value of US beer market: $400 billion/year
Number of regular beer drinkers in US: 90 million

Total Value of US food & beverage market: $1.5 trillion/year (wine and beer is part of this market)

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Number of mobile users in the world: 2.5 billion
Number of cell phones sold each year: 1 billion (new subscribers and upgraders)
Number of desktop computers in use in the world: 300 million

Why I am Dumping my Mac and Switching Back to Windows

I was a "switcher" - I bought the hype and ditched my XP laptop for a Mac Mini desktop setup at home. Big mistake.

In November, I needed to replace my home computer. I had always used my laptop at home, but realized it would be much nicer to have a full computer to make evening and weekend work easier. I decided to buy my first Macintosh. I purchased a Mac Mini (1.83 ghz, superdrive, 1g ram, 80g hd) with 20 inch monitor and bluetooth keyboard and mouse.

Initially, I was very excited. The monitor is beautiful and a pleasure to work on. The computer connected smoothly with my home wireless network. Foldershare seamlessly kept my files synchronized between my home, work and laptop computers. I installed Office for Mac 2004 and Entourage to work with our Exchange email server. I even was able to use eyeTV to connect to my wireless media server to play music and watch video through my home theater.

I expected an initial period of learning and figuring out how to do things on a Mac that I had do on my PC - but that learning period has never ended. I am continually having to buy software or google to figure out how to do tasks that were simple on my PC. So, here are ten reasons I am selling this mac and getting a pc for my home:

1. What the hell is with the right click button on the wireless mighty mouse? Why doesn't it work 70% of the time? To me, this is Apple's big folly - everyone recognizes the two button mouse is superior, but Apple refuses to adopt it fully. In fact, I might not even have started to think about reasons I didn't like my Mac if I didn't fight the mouse issue every time I used the computer.

2. iTunes sucks. It does one thing well - it makes it easy to buy music from the iTunes store, but it does not manage music well. If I want to manage my own music collection (import, delete, edit the meta info) it won't recognize any of the changes - I have to manually tell it to rescan the library. If I have deleted songs, I have to delete them again in iTunes. By default iTunes tries to copy your entire library over again on your hard drive - why? Trying to keep a music library of mp3's synced between my windows machines was easy - adding the Mac caused all sorts of chaos because of iTunes song management.

3. Lack of software from people other than Apple. My business is wine - there are hundreds of Windows applications for wine enthusiasts but only a handful of Mac applications. How many similar hobbies/niches are there where people use software written and sold by small businesses who don't sell a Mac version. There are so few installed Mac users it doesn't make sense to port most of this software. My guess is gamers face the same problem.

4. Parrallels is not the answer. Why pay over $300 to make my PC do what it does natively? Why shouldn't I just run XP?

5. Entourage is OK, but it is no Outlook. Mail, Address Book and Calender are not enterprise ready. Any serious business user needs a fully synchronized PIM - IMAP doesn't cut it. Calender doesn't sync at all with Exchange. Address Book sync's only hourly. I think the people who think Mail, Address Book and Calender are sufficient are the same people who think an out of the box Treo is a serious business device. Use a BlackBerry or Goodlink device for a week and then claim that.

6. Why is it sooo slooooowwwwww... applications take 15 seconds or more to load, spreadsheets take time to manipulate...

7. Quicktime can't play half the video available online.

8. I can't run any of the major web conference clients (webex, gotomeeting, etc).

9. Why is quitting (not just closing) an application 2 click procedure?

10. Mac's are expensive. Though a few studies have shown the high end Mac workstations are comparable to similarly configured Dell workstations, the Mac Mini was 20-30% more expensive than a similar XP machine. Why am I paying a premium for something that doesn't do everything I need it to do? The price disparity increased as I kept having to buy software (eyeTV, Parrallels, etc) to make my Mac do things a PC can do out of the box.

I admit, some of the items on my list are trivial (right click, closing applications) - but if you do them everyday, they become very annoying. I will also say the design of the hardware itself and the look of the software on the screen of the Mac is really nice - but that is only cool for a few days. If the applications run slow, I don't care how nice the system looks. I plan to keep the keyboard (but not the mouse) and 20 inch monitor when I dump the Mini for a small form factor PC.

Two issues are the real meat of the problem for me - lack of solid Exchange support and the right click problem - I dealt with them every time I used the machine. It is really unacceptable. A good tool should just work - I don't want to have to research a work around every time I want to do something new on the machine.

Thanks for listening to my rant. Next week it is back to wine - I promise!

SimulScribe - Great Productivity Tool

I have been waiting for a service called Spinvox to come to the U.S. for over a year. They have a great product - basically they transcribe your voicemails and text message them to you so you can read your messages instead of listening to them.

The idea is great - listening to, saving, deleting and managing voicemail is an annoying task - especially if you know some long winded people who leave important information to the end of the message. Those who know me, know they are lucky if I listen to more than the first 20 seconds of their message.

Spinvox has been operating in Europe for some time now, but hasn't made it to the U.S. until recently. Their service requires working with the mobile carrier to get the carrier to install software in their voicemail. They are taking beta users now, but I wasn't able to get into the trial.

SimulScribe, however, has been in the U.S. for some time now, but I only learned about them last week. Rather than going through the carriers, they show you how to redirect your callers to their voicemail system. It takes 10 minutes to setup and once it is done, the process is seamless to you and your callers.

I setup SimulScribe on Friday and have been having all of my voicemails transcribed and emailed to me all weekend. It is great - one of the biggest productivity boosting tools I have started using in a while.

95% come through perfectly. The transcriber couldn't deceipher a few of my heavily accepted callers (and a couple people who left inebriated messages) . The emails, however, include a WAV file of the original voicemail so I can listen to it right from my Pearl if I want - otherwise, I don't ever have to dial in to my voicemail.

A couple of caveats -

1. The system seems to be human powered - real people are listening to and typing up the messages - so warn your callers not to leave confidential information - a good practice anyway.

2. By default the system tacks on a "This message will be transcribed by SimulScribe. Please speak clearly" message to your outgoing recording. I initially deleted it, but added it back after I realized the transcription quality improved once people got the warning.

The cost is $10 per month for up to 40 messages, and $.25 a message above 40. I also am going to check out GotVoice and Spinvox (if I can get in the beta).

michaelstajer.com is back!

Whew... my blog was offline for a few days. I am not sure what happened, but it looks like when I changed to use Blogger's new blog manager, it redirected my domain to blogspot.com. I don't know how this happened, because my domain is locked at godaddy.com, but am investigating.

Use WineZap Mobile Search to Price-Check When You Shop

WineZap.com (http://www.winezap.com) has introduced a wine search for mobile phones and devices allowing wine lovers to search wine prices and availability.

WineZap Mobile Search is a mobile device optimized website. Visitors are provided a simple interface that works easily with both mobile phone keypads and smartphone keyboards. Users enter a vintage and wine name and are shown prices and contact information from wine retailers around the United States. If the search includes a 5-digit U.S. zip code, the results will include local retailers and their contact information.

The search engine results are optimized for mobile devices screens and display in an easy-to-read format with price, retailer information and phone number. Certain compatible devices (including BlackBerry and Treo) include "click to dial" links to easily place a phone call to the retailer.

The WineZap Mobile Search (http://www.winezap.com/) service is free and simple to use. Browse to http://www.winezap.com using a mobile device's built- in web browser. The application recognizes all the major mobile device browsers and will automatically load the mobile optimized search engine.

The pricing and retailer information is from WineZap's advanced search engine. The system collects wine pricing information from over 700 U.S. retailers, normalizes the data and aggregates it.

Mobile Search complements WineZap's existing SMS product which texts wine prices to consumers. For the future, WineZap is working on a service that allows mobile phone users to text a photo of a wine label to get in-depth product and pricing information.

For full details, please see http://www.winezap.com/mobile.

Update: Mobile search now includes professional reviews!

Reidel's New Celebrity Spokesperson?

If you don't know what WineLibrary TV is...

here is an excellent summary video about what goes on at Gary V's WineLibrary TV:



Check it out for yourself at tv.winelibrary.com.

Carls Jr and 1982 Petrus

I missed this when it came out, but here is a link to a commercial for Carls Jr that features the Malouf brothers, owners of the Palms Casino in Las Vegas. They are eating Carls Jr and drinking an 1982 Petrus.

Click here to view the video.

Current pricing for 1982 Petrus at WineZap.

Where are the good online wine videos?

Online video is hot right now. Other than Gary's great video's at Wine Library, however, there are few good wine videos online.

Here is one only tangentially related to wine I found on youTube.


Anyone have any other good online wine video sources?

Summer Storage Ends!

The holiday season here begins with the official end of summer storage. During the summer it is too hot in many parts of the country to ship wine. To keep sales strong, we offer free storage to our customers during the summer. We have an actively cooled temperature controled 10,000 square foot warehouse in Oakland by the Bay.

This summer was the biggest collection of stored wine to date. Almost a third of our total warehouse space is dedicated to storage right now. You can see from the photos all the wines are securely packed in styrofoam shippers and labeled, barcoded and indexed. [note: the upper photo is blurred to keep the customer information on the labels private.] The white and silver baffling on the walls and ceilings is part of the temperature control. The cage of our new forklift is peaking over the boxes in the lower photo.

Right now we are storing over 14,000 boxes from 7,500 orders!

Today we emailed our customers that we will begin shipping out these items the first full week of November. We will also be offering extended and weekend hours in November to accomodate those people that want to pickup their wines in person.

Moving out that many packages is a big effort. By the time we are done in late November, the holiday rush will be well under way. Things will be busy here through December 23!

I started out in the restaurant industry and will close with a request: treat your service people well during the holiday season - they are overworked and underappreciated.

On the QT - Underground Dining in San Francisco

Off the record, on the QT, and very Hush-Hush, there are underground restaurants in every major city. Last Saturday I finally had a chance to sample the cuisine of the "DC" - the leader of one of San Francisco's underground eating establishments.

The DC (how he likes to be called) has a long history at top LA and SF restaurants. He is "off the grid" right now as he perfects his cuisine and seeks funding for first own restaurant - no more cooking for others.

After emailing the contact I found on a website, I was told what dates the DC would be serving in SF. I mailed back with my requested date and seating time. My reservation was confirmed and I was politely pointed to a paypal account to make a "donation."

The location remained a secret. I received a call the day of the reservation with the address and my reservation confirmation. The address was deep within a residential neighborhood in SF so I was not suprised to pull up to a nice condo building that evening.

A DC fan had loaned his split level condo out for the weekend. The DC would be cooking their 3 evenings - all weekend. The kitchen had a nice Wolf range and the apartment was spacious enough to accomodate three distinct seating areas.

There were about 20 diners from the earlier seating finishing up so I mingled with my guest with the other late seating patrons on the balcony. A server brought us a dubonnet cocktail and we spent a pleasant 20 minutes talking with new friends.

Seating was communal - several of the people we met on the balcony were seated at our table. We then spent 4 hours, 8 wines and 12 courses together. Great food and company. The Chef is experimenting with different combinations and cooking methods. A lot of restaurants do a lot of the same thing - everything here was unique.

The DC was accompanied by three women who helped cook, serve and glad hand the patrons. Each was a food industry professional and complemented the evening.

The entire experience was an excellent reaction to restaurants whose decor and "theater" over shadow the cuisine. It was as back to basics as a 12 course dinner could be.

Reservations are only available to those who know someone who is already a DC patron, so start hassling with your myspace friends to finnagle a booking!

[Names have been redacted to protect the hard working. Email me for the website.]

WineAuctionPrices.com - An Easy Way to Search/Browse Wine Auction Prices

WineCommune, in partnership with William Edgerton, is proud to launch WineAuctionPrices.com - an easy to search online database of wine auction prices.

William H. Edgerton is a nationally recognized expert in wine appraisal and is the former editor of Wine Price File.

The WineAuctionPrice.com database contains more than 125,000 wine prices dating back to 2004. By subscribing to our database, you will be able to search the prices for any wine offered at auction. For each wine, you will see a list of actual realized prices, the name of the auction house, the date of the auction and the condition of the bottles sold.

Click here to see a sample of the data - prices for 2000 Mouton.

Wine auction results coverage includes:

• Bonhams and Butterfield, San Francisco
• Christies, New York, London, California, Paris, Beaune
  
• Sothebys, New York, London
• Morrell, New York
• Acker, Merrall & Condit, New York
  
• Hart Davis Hart, Chicago
  
• Edward Roberts, Chicago

Together, these firms offer more than seventy wine auctions each year and are the principal sources of non-current release wines for American and other wine collectors worldwide.

Use WineAuctionPrices.com to:

• Value your wine collection
• Research wine prices
• Obtain insurance appraisals
• Find the best place to sell your wine
• Compare wine auction houses

Subscriptions start at $15; $99 for a year.

Visit WineAuctionPrices.com.

Wine Price Comparisons on Your Mobile

Our site WineZap.com just released a new service that allows you to receive wine price comparisons directly on your cell phone through text messages.

How well priced is that bottle of Caymus at your local wine shop? Text "2001 Caymus Cabernet" (without the quotes) to mobile@winezap.com and get back the current national high, low and average prices. Add the zipcode ("2001 Caymus Cabernet 94621") and also get back the names of local retailers selling the wine and their pricing!

Simply text the vintage and name of a wine to mobile@winezap.com in an email, SMS, or MMS format. WineZap Mobile will respond with a listing of the current high, low and average price for that wine. If the text message includes a 5 digit U.S. zip code, the response will include the name, phone and pricing of nearby wine retailers offering that wine.

For example, text “2004 Caymus Cabernet 94621” (94621 is a 5-digit U.S. zip code) to mobile@winezap.com and WineZap Mobile will reply:

WINE/LOW/HIGH/AVG
Caymus-Cabernet Sauvignon/$63.97/$95.00/$68.29

RETAILER/PRICE/PHONE
Wine Miles (Benicia)/$64.89/707-751-0551
Calwine.com (Napa)/$64.95/888-225-9463
K & L Wine Merchants (SF)/$64.99/800-247-5987
WineGlobe.com (San Mateo)/$64.99/650-571-7270
Cellar Online.com (El Sobrante)/$69.99/510-243-6600

The pricing and retailer information is from WineZap’s advanced search engine. The system collects wine pricing information from over 700 U.S. retailers, normalizes the data and aggregates it.

For full details, please see http://www.winezap.com/mobile.

Read the full press release (pdf format).

What's up with Web 2.0 and Why Should I Care?

I am not going to try and define web 2.0 - many have already done that. The real question is whether I should care (and you, if you care about such things). We are three years into this movement of community oriented sites combined with AJAX [like] technologies (sorry, I just proferred a definition), but we have only recently seen some wine related web sites.

wineLog.net and corkd.com are two recent examples that do a great job of showing how online wine projects can benefit from a community feel. Both offer a way to post tasting notes and scores on wines and view the reviews posted by others. They both use AJAX technologies and gain value as more people participate. A site with thousands of reviews from hundreds of users is valuable to any wine lover looking to buy or review wine. [check out ct for that - no AJAX, but plenty of community.]

buyersvine.com is the new guy on the block. All AJAX, little wine related content. The idea is interesting but lacks a basic understanding of the way wine is rated and reviewed.

Do I care? Sure - wineLog and corkd may change the way you find new wines. But, it has nothing to do with AJAX and everything to do with the content they offer. The more wine reviews they have, the more likely you will be to browse and search for wine on their systems.

AJAX is definitely a cool technology, but adding AJAX to an idea won't make an otherwise money losing venture profitable. Business has always been about coming up with a profitable core idea then use the best means to implement it. If AJAX happens to be that means, use it. Otherwise, forget it.

Why the rant - we dipped into web 2.0 this week - check out WineCommune Spy.

A Universal Wine Web App API

My universal wine names database idea led to a flurry of emails and phone calls. Several of my peers like the idea, but no one wants to give up their proprietary data. We all see our databases as assets.

In reality, however, while the wine names database is the foundation of any application, it is the information transfer/processing/storage that makes the application exciting. If online wine applications could trade data, what type of exciting things could we do:

• a tasting notes system that aggregated notes from multiple critics, publications, wineries and individual tasters
• a comprehensive wine price database
  
• a cellar management program that knew what you bought no matter who you bought it from
• a wine tracking/transfer system that tracked your wine as you moved it from store to offsite storage to your house
• easy wireless phone access to all your wine online applications

Publishing a simple set of XML API's that describe simple information transfers and transactions would accomplish all of these goals. Companies could adopt these protocols as their own as well as extend the API set by creating application specific API's.

We could also solve the problem not having a public normalized wine database by using the consortium to create a system where each member's database could be normalized against a common dataset without revealing either the dataset or individual databases to the public. Everyone's IP is protected, but we get the benefits of a pseudo-open dB system.

Any takers?

Why is the cost of web hosting increasing?

I have always farmed out WineCommune's web hosting. It never made sense to high hardware experts, database administrators, and server managers when they can be "rented" as part of a hardware lease at a reputable server company. When I started the company in 1999, outsourced servers and bandwidth costs were at a premium. The internet revolution was in full swing and startups were paying top dollar for servers.

By 2000, however, hosted server costs started to plummet. A combination of factors led to a precipitous drop in the cost of outsourced equipment:

• server overcapacity caused by a glut of new facilities coming online
• bandwidth overcapacity caused by too much new fiber coming online at once
  
• drop in demand caused by the beginning of the shakeout of unprofitable dot coms
• commoditization of the hardware and software used to run these machines

For a few years you could shop around and find dirt cheap prices for server/bandwidth services. But, in the last 12 months, the industry has turned around and it is affecting everyone with a significant internet presence.

Industry consolidation combined with a new wave of startups are conspiring to push pricing back to 1999 levels. Commodization has been undermined by a new generation of dual core and 64 bit chips that do significantly improve server performance. Go back to the same hosting companies (the ones still in business) and try to get a deal now and you are likely to be out of luck.

google saw this trend and was prepared. They view their hardware setup as a competitive advantage and crucial to their core business. As a result, they have been building their own data centers around the world and building their own hardware. In fact, one researcher believes they are the 3rd largest computer assembler in the world - behind Dell and HP.

Most Internet business have a high gross margin so incremental server costs will not disastrously affect bottom lines. But, controlling server costs can give a business an advantage over competition by keeping prices low when others are raising theirs.

Effective Email Newsletters - Rule 1: Stay off the Spam Lists!

Part 1 in a 1 part series.

We do a lot of email and email marketing at WineCommune. Some days we send over 100,000 emails. Email is an integral part of communicating with our customers and we work hard to ensure our emails are delivered and not trapped by spam filters. Any wine business can benefit from an effective marketing program. As spam, and efforts to fight it, have increased, however, it has become more difficult to ensure your emails don't get trapped in spam filters.

I was discussing ways to keep your email marketing clean on a popular webmaster discussion board and thought some readers here would be interested.

When evaluating your email marketing campaign, here is a list of factors to consider to ensure high deliverability:

1. Is your list truely opt in? Are you subscribing people to your mail list just because they register for you site, or do they affirmatively choose to join your list?

2. Are you doing any co-registration for your newsletter (ie. are people joining your newsletter from sites other than your own)? That is usually impossible to police properly and will lead to spam reports.

3. Check the content of your emails. Do they trip spam filters? Are you using too many images? Is your newsletter language too "spammy": buy now, check this out, sale, v1agra, etc.

4. Does your email comply with can-spam? Physical address, unsubscribe information, etc.

5. Check your mail server's ip address on the rbl lists. Google "rbl check" to find tools that allow you to check your status.

6. Monitor your bounce backs - remove emails that block you or are not valid emails.

7. Consider outsourcing your email to a newsletter hosting specialist company (google: newsletter hosting). They do all this for you and keep their IP's off the spam lists.

8. Monitor your email lists for "dead drop" emails - addresses people use to see if you are selling their email address. These people are usually trouble period - they have a very broad definition of spam (flame away!). Also look for spam filters that want you to click a link to allow the email to be sent - personally, I think this is the worst type of spam filter and NEVER click those links. Make your own decision.

9. Do not sell/trade your email list. Do NOT even allow others to send promotion emails to their lists on your behalf. That worked in 2000 but won't work now - see #8 above.

10. Send multi-part messages with both html and text parts (not really a spam tip, but good practice considering the number of people who read email on a bb/treo and delete newsletters before they sit down at their computer).

11. Email on a regular schedule.

12. Limit the number of emails you send per week/month.

13. Don't use MS Word or other verbose html editors to create your emails. Make sure just pure html goes in - all the extraneous tags can confuse/trip spam filters.

14. Make sure your email server is closed to relaying.

15. Make sure your email server will properly respond to a reverse dns lookup.

16. When people subscribe to your newsletter, be sure to ask them to put your newsletter's from email address in their address book or white list.

17. Consider double opt in. Your subscribe rate will drop by half, but so will your headache rate.

18. Enjoy!

PS. Kudo's to Angie who several years ago took my hand and showed me how to keep our email marketing clean. I hope I haven't divulged too many trade secrets Angie!

Open Source in Online Wine Applications - the Case for a Universal Wine Names Database

Without going into the pros/cons of open source application or database development, let me say that there is a great need for a universal wine name/information database for wine application development projects.

Right now, there is no available comprehensive database of wine producers, label name and basic geographic information. You can purchase a subset of the UPC database that includes wine, but it is woefully inadequate. The UPC database lacks most high end wines which don't have a UPC code - do an informal survey, start looking for a UPC barcode on the next wines you drink, they are not likely to have any (if most do, you should probably drink better wine).

That creates a big problem for people like me in - those in the business of creating applications that collect, organize and display information on wine. There is no way to normalize the data without building your own database. I ran into this problem in 1999 when I launched our first site, WineCommune.com. I avoided the problem for as long as I could, but by 2000 we realized the next generation of applications required it.

We built our own database from a combination of sources. Originally, the project took a significant amount of work to design and seed. Once we reached a critical mass of entries (enough entries to cover 98% of our data needs), however, maintaining and expanding the database became straightforward tasks.

That database sits behind all of our applications and represents a significant asset - both intellectual and financial. As a small company or private enthusiast, I could never have afforded it - it was only after I had established a profitable venture that I could justify the cost.

What should such a database contain:

• producers
• labels
• basic geographic information
• varietal
• name changes for a wine

Aggregating that data for tens of thousands (even hundreds of thousands) of wines is not trivial. Thus, the question - how many potential wine applications are out there but that get stymied in the initial phases because of the lack of a comprehensive name database? A consortium of online wine companies could get together and put an initial database in the public domain. But, would we? My database is a competative asset - the benefits from opening my database would have to outweigh the loss of exclusivity.

Maybe we need a little guy to shake us up - start an online application that aims to build a database and relies on user contributions to build it. Access would be dependant on how much you contributed. An accurate, freely available, comprehensive wine name/information database would spawn a new generation of applications.

Touched a Nerve

My rant against the Treo 650 (a device I am connected to the hip with) definitely touched a nerve. It was one of my best read posts and in addition to the blistering 3 comments posted, I actually received a bunch of email.

Many of the emails I received fell into 5 categories:

1. Treo sucks.
2. Blackberry sucks.
3. Random other device rules.
4. Gimme the e70!
5. Enlarge your penis.

I don't think #5 was directly related to my post, but I wasn't sure.

A few people had some great points:

1. The problem with all these devices is they turn us into email addicts; we check them first thing in the morning, last thing at night, out on a date, etc.
2. The voice/phone features on both the treo and blackberry lag a dedicated phone only device, such as the Motorola RAZR v3.
3. Is anyone really editing excel or word document on their phone?

One real benefit of these phones has nothing to do with email. Their larger screens allow a better web browsing experience. Many phones have built in web browsers that allow you to surf normal websites easily on a small screen. If you goto wap.google.com on your cell phone, google will convert any website you select after a search into a mobile friendly version.

This means your favorite websites can be taken anywhere, whether or not the site has a special web version. My favorites to check while in a wine shop:

1. www.erobertparker.com: for ratings and tasting notes
   
2. www.winezap.com: for comparitive prices of wines from US retailers (offered by my company)
3. vinography.com: what's hot now.

Try it yourself - check your phone's menu for a web browser icon.

Next week I will back on wine tech - specifically, could some open source projects help online wine applications?

My Love/Hate Relationship with my Treo 650

OK, sometimes this blog is about wine, sometimes it is about technology and sometimes it is about both. Today it is about technology. Specifically, why I hate my Treo 650, but can't get rid of it.

This comes up because I am eagerly awaiting the release of the Nokia e70, but it has been delayed many months. I believe this new Nokia will be able to replace my Treo, but until it releases I am teathered to the Treo brick.

To be fair, let me start with some things I love about the Treo:

1. With Goodlink software, the Treo is far better than Blackberry as an on the go email device.
2. It has a smaller form factor than the Blackberry.
3. It can run other programs other than email and PIM. For example, I can use it to Windows RDP to different computers. I can edit Word and Excel documents. The number of 3rd party software applications is huge.
4. It plays music - I can sync it with my music on my computer and listen in the car, on the plane, etc.
5. It takes SD memory cards so I can store a large number of music, files, etc.

OK, now here are the reasons why I plan to drop the Treo as soon as the Nokia comes out:

1. It weighs almost 6 onces! It is like carrying a brick around in my pocket.
2. It crashes/freezes once a day.
3. Battery life is less than 24 hours.
4. Wireless email out of the box (ie. without goodlink) is poor - no push, no sync, no folders.
5. The camera is sub-par.
6. Did I mention it weighs almost 6 onces?

The Treo has been a great bridging device. I switched to it from my old Blackberry 7250 because of the smaller form factor. But the large weight and poor battery life means it cannot be my permanent phone. There are roomers of slimmer Treo in the works, but all I have seen are the new 700 versions, which don't do much to address my concerns.

Besites, the Nokia already has a bunch of wine related software available!

Mikasa Releases Unbreakable Glass at Vinexpo in HK

At this week's Vinexpo show in Hong Kong, Mikasa has released an unbreakable wine glass made from a new material called Kwarx. Kwarx glass is handblown crystal and is designed to be unbreakable while retaining lustre and transparency.

Thanks to Decanter Magazine for the story.

Live Wine Auctions Online - Bringing More Bidders to the Room

I just returned from Chicago where I supervised the Internet broadcasting of Edward Roberts International May 2006 Fine and Rare Wine Auction. For the past 3 years, WineCommune has been working with ERI (among others), to allow Internet users to participate in live auctions and bid against in room bidders.

See the results of the most recent ERI auction.

Traditional live auctions are an excellent way to acquire rare wines. Staid auction houses often can access wines that cannot be found online or at your local retailer. They inspect each bottle and research its provenance and then offer it to the public. People bid on the wine either by submitting absentee bids or by showing up on the day of the auction to bid in the auction room.

The internet is a natural compliment to the traditional auction process. Broadcasting the auctions online opens up the bidding to those who can't be in the room, increases the competativeness and results in better results for the auctioneer (and his consignor).

We developed a Java applet that keeps the bidder informed of the lot and the current bid. He has one button that allows him to place a bid at the current increment. The rest of the GUI is information: what is the current bid, is your bid winning/losing, what lot number is up, etc.

The system is very efficient and keeps pace with the in room bidders. In the three years WineCommune has done this, I have found we can double the number of participants on auction day and many others use the system just to watch the action.

eBay's live auction program does something similar for small auction houses across the country. But none of the major auction houses do any online broadcasting. Places such as Christies, Sotheby's, and Zachy's are content to just display auction catalogues online, but require in room or absentee bids.