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December 20 2008
A while back, a friend of mine with teen kids told an amusing story about teen boys and Axe body spray, no doubt a precursor to the dubious Burger King cologne, with hints of ‘cooked meat,’ that was launched this week, in time for the holidays.
As the story went, these freshmen in high school dudes would finish their gym class to shower and get ready for their next class and so vigorously spray themselves down with Axe body spray of differing scents that the locker room would be choked with a powdery residue hanging in the air and a nausea-inducing stench.
Eventually, body sprays were banned from the locker room. Public safety, I suppose.
Little known to most of the free world, those tragic-comic Axe commercials about Axe body spray helping teen guys land woman, apparently work with 12-15 year old teens.
Who knew?
According to Wikipedia, though I have not seen it, Axe rolled out commercials this year for their chocolate scent, Dark Temptation, “a chocolate smelling fragrance that implies that because women like chocolate, they will find men who smell of chocolate irresistible.”
Clearly, Axe was the inspiration for the simultaneously awe-inducing and head-scratching announcement this week that Burger King was selling promotional cologne called “Flame” that promises to marry “the scent of seduction with a hint of flame-broiled meat.”
My only question is, because there are wine-related perfumes available, as featured by Dr. Vino a couple of years ago, what burger perfume do you pair with what wine perfume?
Posted in, Around the Wine Blogosphere. Permalink | Comments (0) | Print |
December 1 2008
There has been a debate over the course of the last year that likely will not end anytime soon – it is a shifting debate with no clear lines of demarcation, but it mainly has to do with the role of bloggers as wine media, attendant ethical implications and the shape-shifting dynamics of social media, particularly as an agent of winery marketing.
Folks, we are in the midst of a technological shift that is causing massive sociological marketing shifts across all industries. This is an intractable, empirical fact. There are no ifs, ands or buts about it.
The impetus for this brief post is another Molotov cocktail hurled by Steve Heimoff – a fine writer and industry veteran who seemingly does not mind biting the blogging hand that welcomed him into the community whilst simultaneously not seeing the irony in most of his commentary given his employer.
If he slapped my Mom on the ass on the way in the door, he would have completed the poor guest trifecta.
Last week, he posted a rebuttal on his site, found here, from a post by WineDiverGirl.
I will not get into the middle of that debate, it was relatively benign for what it was, and the gist is bloggers getting too close to their subject matter. However, what I am asking for is a moment of clarity.
I do not think that most people that read wine blogs understand enough, at a 100,000 foot level the dynamics of the shape-shifting revolution that is going on in content consumption fed by this thing we call the Internet.
If they did, our top wine bloggers would have 1000s of subscribers to their RSS feed instead of 300+
Heck, I do not get all of it. It is impossible to understand everything technology-related and put it into context.
However, I do keep a pretty close eye on the Internet, social media and the marketing landscape and I would urge EVERYBODY that has an opinion in this debate to do some outside homework.
I say this because I run up against some old guard sensibilities that fail to recognize to some simple, fundamental things:
* Journalism – the fourth estate - is a monologue.
* Social media and blogging is a conversation.
When I have a conversation with somebody I typically engage them in an exchange of ideas. That exchange of ideas is not marketing it is a conversation. I can be biased, but you can still trust my opinion, or not. That choice is yours based on what you think my credibility and transparency level is.
Or, put another way, it is like Monday morning or armchair quarterbacking. Look, I played football for one season in 5th grade and I played some Techmo Bowl and Madden video games. Just because I know what a Cover-2 defense is or I know what “Trips Right” means does not mean I know that much about football. If I did, I would surely go on and on about why Notre Dame has not been able to run the ball for the last two years. Because I am conversationally dangerous, but not knowlegeable, I couch my commentary on the status of football related things to that which I can back-up with a vestige of fact in order to enhance my credibility, or at least not be seen a fool.
Simply enough, I think Steve Heimoff is arm chair quarterbacking and doing so in a way that doesn’t expose what he knows, but rather what he doesn’t know.
Here are five resources I encourage everybody to read in sequential order:
1) The final word on blogging, ethics and journalism
3) A series of posts on social media at this blog, also presented in .ppt form here
4) This presentation on social media at Slideshare
5) This incredibly insightful treatise on the future of content, social media and distribution paths (thanks to Joel Vincent for the pointer)
I guarantee, if you read all five items with an open mind, your view of today and your view of tomorrow will be enlightened.
That said, I don’t apologize for much, but I apologize for this post. It has nothing to do with wine, or at least very little, but I feel like influential people are on the bully pulpit without having a fundamental understanding of the dynamic in which they are operating.
I’m no pie in the sky futurist talking about things 10 years off, I’m talking about changes in our media and our world that are happening right now.
As soon as we all agree that it is happening, the better off we will ALL be.
Posted in, Around the Wine Blogosphere. Permalink | Comments (8) | Print |
October 2 2008
I’m a reasonable man. Yet, I still don’t know if Gary Vaynerchuk is a genius or a snake oil salesman; a web 2.0 Anthony Robbins, selling platitudes wrapped in charisma.
One thing is certain, I am on record saying that I would listen to Mark Burnett, producer of Survivor, who I saw speak at an IBM conference, read the phone book. Vaynerchuk is creeping into the same territory.
Ah, gotta love the cult of personality.
Posted in, Around the Wine Blogosphere. Permalink | Comments (3) | Print |
August 30 2008
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Abraham Lincoln
In between Steve Heimoff, Tom Wark and dozens of commenters, there has been vigorous debate about the Rockaway wine program that I coordinated. The stuff hit the fan at Steve Heimoff’s blog, but really exploded at Tom Wark’s site. See here and here. If you are simply a wine reader that doesn’t care about this car wreck, I apologize, but this isn’t an issue that is dying, particularly with such dogmatic idealism occurring.
In the wine blogging world, the house is divided. People want to talk about this dissension and flap advancing the cause, toughening up skin, etc. It’s all bull and justification.
It’s unfortunate, too. Most of this flap could have been prevented if folks checked facts before hitting the publish button. For an accurate near blow by blow account, I urge you to check out Tim’s post at Winecast.net
The net-net of the situation is that the bloggers that have participated in the Rockaway program that I created have been accused of some slanderous things like lacking integrity and ethics. Yet, both Steve and Tom Wark and some of the vigorous early commenters like Ryan from Catavino are guilty of proffering inaccurate and erroneous opinions—if they would have checked the facts their opinions wouldn’t have been so inaccurate and polarizing. To me, not checking your facts is a far more offensive notion than writing about a wine sample. So far, Steve is back-pedaling, Ryan acknowledges that we, apparently, didn’t communicate well enough (though he doesn’t acknowledge not understanding well enough) and Tom is stubbornly clinging onto his inaccuracies that led to an opinion that nobody but a sycophant would agree with. And, he’s also trying to hang onto whatever is left of his blog credibility.
In fact, as Joe from 1WineDude points out, Tom would appear to be guilty of many of the things he accuses us of doing, without having done a little thing like give full transparency, as Joe notes below.
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Tom - this reviewer is *you*, right?
http://thewinespies.com/directory/wine/264
You don’t have to answer actually, because I checked the facts and it is actually you, as stated right here on your blog
I am correct in my understanding that the above is a program that requires you to -
1) ‘Write about this wine in exchange for receiving it’, and
2) Requires ‘the wine be written about within a certain time frame as a condition of receiving it’
Right?
You don’t have to answer that one either, because I checked the facts at thewinespies.com for you. And that is, in fact, what you have to agree to do in order to participate in the program and receive the wine:
“Review a wine that we send you, in time for us to post [your review] on one of our 1 day sales”
What you might want to answer is -
How is the above different from what you and others here have been citing as a mistake? Or had you actually made the exact same mistake before any the participants in this study?
Your words:
“I think a mistake was made in demanding that bloggers write about this wine in exchange for receiving it. And I think a mistake was made in demanding that the wine be written about within a certain time frame as a condition of receiving it.”
I’m really struggling as to how to frame a logical interpretation of your two posts on this subject that isn’t somehow hypocritical on your part.
Also, my understanding is that it’s common journalistic practice to get the facts before publishing your writing.
We’ve established that you did not do that - according to multiple statements from the winery, the participants, and the organizer of the event.
Isn’t it also common journalistic practice to publish a retraction? From a recent correction/retraction policy I came across: “Retractions are judged according to whether the main conclusion of the paper is seriously undermined as a result.”
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It’s a really nice bit of sleuthing on Joe’s part and certainly reframes this conversation AWAY from the Rockaway wine bloggers into an entirely different conversation—one about glory whores and those that use glory holes. I won’t cast aspersions or pejoratives or knife people in the back the way that I have been treated this week, but I think we all know who the “glory” folks are here.
Posted in, Around the Wine Blogosphere. Permalink | Comments (16) | Print |
July 24 2008
A pretty cool application over at wordle.net. Type in your web address tied to an RSS feed and it scans your site and gives you back word art. I have to say, as an encapsulation on how I think of my site, as a mixture of indivdual words, it’s pretty spot-on. Thanks to Kristy from Wreckless Photography for the tip, as I saw it on her site.
Posted in, Around the Wine Blogosphere. Permalink | Comments (1) | Print |
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