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?