Filed under: blogging

Beer Bloggers Rule

Well done to the intrepid group of communicators dedicated to the fermented product of a different sort. It seems that the UK beer world continues to attract great writers and a strong community of committed individuals who are establishing a dominant position in the Wikio rankings for June in the "Beer & Wine" Category (I think they may name it differently on the site, but that's where we are heading).

In a dim and distant past, wine blogs used to compete closely with food blogs for attention, and bloggers like Andrew Barrow at Spittoon used to rank extremely highly in a broader "Gastronomy" category. But as audiences expanded and developed, food grew MASSIVELY and left us trailing in their Google Page Rank wake, and so the kind folks at Wikio decided to create a new home for us alcoholics (creators of alcoholic beverage related content, I mean).

Today, wine blogs are not performing as well on these rankings. Why?

In brief, I think that the wine blogging community has not developed the range of styles available in other media, and the established wine writers have yet to really grasp the blogging thorn and create individual blogs in the way that the beer community has.

It is also true that a lot of the interaction with these bloggers now takes place on twitter, and I don't know if Wikio and their ilk take full account of this (but presumably this happens for beer as well).

So, a sneak preview of the June results are below. Congratulations, once again, to Pete Brown for top place and to Zythophile for jumping 13 places to number 3, and Rabid About Beer for jumping 19 places to number 9.

The highest ranking wine blogs are Wine Conversation, Drinking Outside the Box,  Bordoverview and Spittoon coming in between 15th and 19th.

The question is, what can we wine bloggers do about the profile of wine? Well, as Baldrick might say ...

"I have a cunning plan ...."

Watch this list in the coming months and see if we can do something about this, but more importantly, check out the wine blogs on the list, spread the word, leave a comment and share a glass.

Slainte!

 

1 Pete Brown's Blog
2 Pencil & Spoon
3 Zythophile
4 Beer Reviews
5 Master Brewer at Adnams
6 Are You Tasting the Pith?
7 Tandleman's Beer Blog
8 The Good Stuff
9 Rabid About Beer
10 Ghost Drinker
11 Reluctant Scooper
12 Raising the Bar
13 The Pub Curmudgeon
14 Real Brewing at the Sharp End
15 The Wine Conversation
16 Called to the bar
17 Drinking Outside The Box
18 Bordoverview Blog
19 Spittoon
20 HopZine.com

Ranking made by Wikio

UK Wine Bloggers ... by PeerIndex score

I've been playing around with "influence" scores a lot over the last few weeks in preparation for a post called "Measuring influence or communication skills" looking at what these numbers might mean for the wider wine world and the London Wine Trade Fair.

As part of the process I also made a separate list of the twitter accounts of those UK Wine Bloggers that were listed in my "UK Wine Blogs list" (now not current, but with a new, revised and improved one is on its way - one day).

Here, for what it is worth, is the list:

For information on what this means, do take a look at the post on WineConversation.com

Let me know via PeerIndex if I have missed you out and want added as it will help me create the new list as well.

Julie, Julia and Me

I watched Julie & Julia last night for the first time. I first heard about it from a good friend @mathildecuisine who also happens to be an excellent food blogger, but I had not got around to watching it.

I have to start by admitting that as a Brit who spent most of his young life in Italy & Mexico, and someone who is not a real “foodie”, the name Julia Child did not mean anything to me but only rang the most distant bells. However, I am now much more interested and love the fact that one person can make such a demonstrable impact on the culture of a country.

I’m not going to review the film but I do suggest you go and watch it though (with some decent nibbles, preferably home-made, and a relaxing bottle of wine). What I want to do is ask some questions or make comments that it inspired concerning the various relationships it presents, and the view of blogging that comes across. Note, these will make much more sense if you have seen the film!

On relationships:

  • There was an interesting contrast, but a little overshadowed: food (and wine) brings people together, but writing about it can separate you from others ... Unless you make it interactive (but neither really did, as presented by the film). However, while writing the book was something that helped Julia’s relationship, it felt like the blog was presented as something that negatively affected Julie’s relationships at home and her work. Is that fair?
  • Why did Julie make no effort to meet with Julia? Why accept unreliable word of mouth feedback? Why did no-one try to put them together?
  • Would either Julie or Julia have been able to do what they did if they had kids? Not a major theme, but I wonder. As a blogger who started only AFTER having kids, I think the role of the passionate amateur and how/when they blog is something that ought to be explored more.


On Blogging and how it is presented:

  • I think the well defined theme, and the deadline, made the blog more interesting for readers, but it also makes it more of an experiment, or project, and not a blog as I see them today. I used to have one of those. They do motivate you, but ultimately they have an end. Is that what we want? To give blogs a lifespan, with expiry dates?
  • Julie keeps making references to the increasing number of comments on her blog. Hurrah! But how many did she respond to? Where’s the conversation?
  • We only hear about one other blog in the film and that is spoken about with complete disdain. I know the film is based in 2002, not 2010, but why was Julie not involved with (reading, commenting, promoting, learning from, ...) other blogs? What does this film REALLY say about bloggers and their readers? In many ways, she is really still a lone magazine writer with an audience. We don’t see the readers’ perspective.
  • Julie says; “she taught me to cook”, but did she? We only see her making recipes. Where’s the creativity and independence that it could have inspired? Is that cooking?


Just some random thoughts the morning after. I need to check out the book, and I also gather there is a follow-up that might address some of these questions.

Have you seen it? Did you enjoy it? Any lessons you learned that I missed?